Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF FOOD

Meat

Mr. H. Hynd: asked the Minister of Food whether he is yet in a position to issue regulations providing for charges to be made by a local authority for the inspection of meat; or, alternatively, whether he will allow local authorities to adopt by-laws in respect of private slaughterhouses.

The Minister of Food (Mr. Heathcoat Amory): I cannot at present add to the reply given to the hon. Member on 22nd November last.

Mr. Hynd: Is this not a long time to decide what should be a rather simple matter? Regulations can be made now for public abattoirs, and it would seem to be a rather simple matter to allow local authorities to control the hours when slaughter should take place and the charges that can be made.

Mr. Amory: I sympathise with the hon. Member's concern, but I assure him that it is not quite as simple a matter as it looks. One of the factors that has a bearing on the situation is the number of slaughterhouses, on which I am awaiting the report of the committee which is at present dealing with this matter.

Mr. Collins: asked the Minister of Food if he is aware that the price of 160s. per live cwt. now being paid by butchers for grade A meat compares with a retail price range of from 3s. 6d. to 5s. 6d. per lb. for best quality meat; and if he will reimpose price control in order to reduce these prices.

Mr. Amory: The present high level of prices for cattle in the auction markets

and for home-killed meat in the shops is due, in the main, to the normal seasonal fall in production. To reimpose price control without rationing would merely drive the better quality meat under the counter.

Mr. Collins: Is the Minister aware that the Question refers not only to the high prices of home-killed meat but to the disparity between the wholesale and the retail prices? Is he further aware that only a minority of housewives can now buy a decent bit of meat? Will he, if he does not believe in our methods, do something serious by his own methods to start bringing prices down?

Mr. Amory: I believe that the best way of ensuring that prices are reasonable is competition supported by discriminating buying. In this case I think that the consumer sometimes under-estimates the amount of influence which he or she can exert on retail prices. I would point out to the hon. Gentleman that there are less popular cuts of home-killed meat avail able at considerably lower prices, and plenty of——

Mr. Dodd's: Scraggy ends for the workers.

Mr. Amory: A few years ago people had to accept scraggy ends. Today the demand generally centers on better-quality meat, and the scraggy ends are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to dispose of. I would say finally that there is plenty of imported meat available at considerably lower prices.

Mr. W. Wells: asked the Minister of Food what arrangements are being made regarding the importation of meat from the Argentine during the coming year.

Mr. Amory: Beef and pork will continue to be shipped on Government account until the bulk-purchase quantities are completed. Thereafter all meat will be imported on private account.

Mr. Wells: Will not the result of these arrangements, both in the short term and in the long term, be a further aggravation of the rise in the cost of living?

Mr. Amory: I certainly hope not.

Mr. Gaitskell: Can the right hon. Gentleman give some assurance to the House on this matter? Has he not considered whether prices are likely to rise


when trade is restored to free competition? Has he any information on the point?

Mr. Amory: Yes, Sir. Our view is that the purchase of meat through private channels is likely, in the long term, to be of advantage to the country, and it will provide meat of better quality and better value than if it were done under Government control.

Mr. McAdden: Can my right hon. Friend give a firm assurance that when these arrangements come into effect, even should there be an increase it; will not be anything like the increase of 60 per cent. in food prices which occurred under the Socialist Government?

Tea

Miss Burton: asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware that the price of tea has risen since decontrol; that many old people now cannot afford to buy an adequate amount; and, as further price increases have just take place, if he will consider the imposition of price control.

Mr. Amory: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay),and the hon. Members for Sunder-land, North (Mr. Willey), Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher), Brixton (Lieut.-Colonel Lipton), and West Ham, North (Mr. Lewis) on 14th February.

Miss Burton: While not having by me those answers—I expect they were allunsatisfactory—may I ask the Minister whether he has noticed how some shopkeepers are selling tea at reduced prices to old people because they cannot afford to buy it? Does the Minister approve of this? If not, is he prepared to do something to help the old people?

Mr. Amory: I am very glad to hear of every effort that shopkeepers make to sell these commodities at the lowest possible price. As regards the old people, my latest figures do not show any reduction in the consumption of tea by old-age pensioners. The hon. Lady will know the steps that the Government have recently taken to improve the lot of old-age pensioners.

Mr. Jay: While I congratulate the Minister on having come to the rescue of

the Parliamentary Secretary, whose answers were wholly unsatisfactory, can the right hon. Gentleman now say what action he is going to take?

Mr. Amory: There is no action that I can take which would be effective at the present time. I am certainly not willing to take action unless I see a chance of it being effective.

Mr. Jay: If the right hon. Gentleman is not able to take action, will he make way for some other Minister who can take effective action?

Mr. Amory: The difference between hon. Members opposite and we on this side of the House is that we do not always believe that Government action is the best way of ensuring the best possible supply of food to this country so far as quality, quantity and price are concerned.

Mr. Nabarro: Is it not a fact that the average price of tea has risen since derationing from 3s. 6d. to 7s. 6d. per lb., and the average consumption for an old-age pensioner is slightly more than 2 oz. per week? Does it not, therefore, follow that the old-age pensioner is being called upon to pay 7d. per week per head more for tea, which is many, many times offset by the large increases in old-age pensions?

Mr. G. Jeger: asked the Minister of Food whether he will take action by Government purchase to build up stocks of tea, in view of the shortage of supplies in relation to demand.

Mr. Amory: No, Sir. To attempt to build up stocks by Government purchase would only force up the price.

Mr. Jeger: But if the Minister really believes that competition brings down prices, why does he not go into competition with the tea buyers and bring down the price of tea by buying it?

Mr. Amory: I cannot think of any action which would force prices up farther than the Government going into the market as buyers.

Mr. Strachey: Could the right hon. Gentleman tell us what he and his hon. Friends would have said of our methods of bulk purchase of tea if they had resulted in a rise in price comparable with this rise?

Mr. Amory: I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that the Government in which he was a Minister did away with the bulk purchase of tea in 1951.

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Food whether, in view of the increasing retail price of tea, he will consult the representatives of the tea trade in order to introduce a scheme of voluntary control of tea prices.

Mr. Jay: asked the Minister of Food whether he will consult the tea trade in order to find an agreed method of reducing the retail price of tea to a reasonable level.

Mr. Chetwynd: asked the Minister of Food if he will have discussions with the Tea Trade Committee about the supply and price of tea, in order to ensure an agreed scheme for the voluntary reduction of prices and the maintenance of adequate supplies.

Miss Bacon: asked the Minister of Food his plans for discussions with the tea trade to find an agreed basis of price stabilisation in order to prevent a recurrence of the rise in price.

Mr. Amory: I am in regular consultation with the tea trade. The dominant factor is the price of tea at the international auctions, and I am satisfied that the tea trade in this country is doing its best to keep the price to the consumer as low as possible.

Mr. Willey: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the tea trade, contrary to what he has said, maintains that the supply is slightly in excess of demand at the present time? In view of this, does he not think that there is a clear case for Government intervention? Is it not shocking that, whereas the threatened price rise has been rescinded by the action of this side of the House, the Government have done nothing at all?

Mr. Amory: I cannot accept the conclusion of the hon. Gentleman. He seems to be saying simply, "Something must be done." [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] I remember that Lord Melbourne once said that he usually found that when a Member of Parliament said that something must be done he was about to suggest something extremely stupid.

Mr. Jay: In view of the pledges which the party opposite gave at the last Elec-

tion to bring the cost of living down, is there not a special obligation on the Minister now to take some action? Will he specifically give an assurance now that he will approach the representatives of the tea trade and ask them to introduce a system of voluntary price control, if he will not introduce compulsory control?

Mr. Amory: I believe that the nation is well satisfied with the direction in which things are going, and not dissatisfied with the progress which has been achieved. As to the last part of the question, I do not think that that action would be at all helpful and I do not believe that it would lead to effective result.

Mr. Chetwynd: Is it not clear that something has been done, and that as a result of pressure from this side of the House the tea magnates have abated their rapacity, and for the time being have put their promised increase in cold storage? Why do not the Government take action and not go on saying that they are completely helpless in this matter?

Mr. Amory: I think that the hon. Member natters himself and his hon. Friends.

Miss Bacon: Is the Minister not aware that not only Members of Parliament but the whole nation think something should be done? Is he saying, in effect, that the Government are prepared to do nothing except consult the tea traders, and to take no action whatsoever to prevent a further rise in prices?

Mr. Amory: The Government would certainly not hesitate to take action if they could see action which would be appropriate on their part, and effective. The situation is that the present price of tea is due to the relatively strong demand as against the supply available. When that balance is corrected, the price will come down.

Sir T. Moore: Is there not something "phoney" about all this? [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Would my right hon. Friend say how we can raise the standard of living of the backward countries, which we all want to do, including hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, if we do not pay higher prices to the producers in those countries?

Mr. Gaitskell: Since the right hon. Gentleman has placed the blame for this situation on the producers of tea, will he say what discussions he had with the


Prime Minister of Ceylon and the Prime Minister of India when they were in this country recently?

Mr. Amory: The right hon. Gentleman is under a misapprehension. I did not lay the blame for present prices on the producers.

Mr. Gaitskell: Nevertheless, will the right hon. Gentleman say whether he took advantage of the presence of those Prime Ministers in this country to discuss this vitally important matter with them?

Mr. Amory: The facts of the situation are quite clear.

Dr. Summerskill: Are the increased prices which the producers are getting being passed to the employees?

Mr. Amory: I am afraid that that is not my responsibility.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Are not these questions extremely useful—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—in that they build up an overwhelming case for the return of rationing, which millions of consumers would utterly repudiate?

Miss Burton: asked the Minister of Food what reply he has sent to the telegram from the national President of the National Union of Small Shopkeepers concerning the refusal of the Government to hold an inquiry into the problem of tea prices and profits.

Mr. Amory: I am sending the hon. Member a copy of the reply.

Miss Burton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the public are very mystified about this matter, except for the fact that they have to pay for these increases? Would he explain to the people how it is that when prices fall at the tea auctions prices do not come down in the shops? Why are the Government prepared to do everything to cover up these increases? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we have been told by the Prime Minister of Ceylon that Mincing Lane is to blame for the increases? Has he any comment to make?

Mr. Amory: I think that I have given a reply to this supplementary question about three times already. The present price depends on the price at the auctions, and that is a price which Her Majesty's

Government are not in a position to control. As far as the remarks of the Prime Minister of Ceylon go, I think that if he and I got involved in a discussion on the proper margin for retail prices, both of us might well find ourselves in waters of great technical depth.

Mr. Strachey: Would the right hon. Gentleman not agree that it remains a fact that the method used by the late Government of procuring tea by bulk purchase for many years succeeded in keeping the price down, during a period of far greater shortage in supply than exists today? [HON. MEMBERS: "Who gave it up?"] May it not have been an error on the part of whoever did it to give up that process? In the light of the consequences seen today, would not the Minister consider going back to that method of procuring, which kept the price down?

Mr. Amory: I certainly would consider it if I thought that it would be the right thing to do.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Minister of Food whether, in view of the fact that tea prices at London auctions have fallen, he will take steps, by price control or otherwise, to prevent any further increase in the price of tea.

Mrs. Mann: asked the Minister of Food if, in view of the price fluctuations on tea at the auction marts in recent days, he will reimpose control over a limited period to maintain price stability until the position is easier.

Mr. Amory: It would be fruitless to attempt to stabilise the world price of tea by price control without rationing.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is the Minister not aware that, despite the recent fall in tea prices at the auctions, various tea, companies have announced that there will be further increases in price at the end of the month? [An Hon. Member: "Not now."] Is the Minister going to do anything about that, and make it quite clear to the price-ringers of the tea trade that he will take resolute action against any attempt to bully or blackmail shopkeepers who try to sell tea below the current inflated prices?

Mr. Amory: I think that I made it clear that if price control were imposed.


it would not produce the result which we all want, namely, lower prices, in the long run, for tea.

Mrs. Mann: Is the Minister aware that when his predecessor derationed tea an assurance was given to the House that the price would rise by ½d. per lb., that it has now risen by 4s. 8d. per lb., and are we to take it that there is no appropriate stage at all when this Government will take action to stabilise prices?

Mr. Amory: I cannot believe my predecessor forecast what would happen as far ahead as now in regard to the price of tea when it was decontrolled. I am quite sure that he did not give the assurance to which the hon. Lady has referred except in the sense he did it from the short-term point of view of what would happen.

Mr. Callaghan: If the Government are ready to incur a loss of £20 million on the sale of road service lorries, why not suspend the sales of those lorries and use the £20 million levy to subsidise the price of tea?

Mr. Warbey: asked the Minister of Food whether he will appoint an independent committee to inquire into the organisation of tea marketing, packing, and distribution, and to make recommendations with a view to reducing the margin between the cost of production and the price paid by the consumer, by price control or otherwise.

Mr. Amory: I do not think that such an inquiry would serve a useful purpose.

Mr. Warbey: In view of the fact that two pungent words from the Prime Minister of Ceylon punctured the tea-market bubble, does not the right hon. Gentleman think that there ought to be an inquiry into this chaotic racket, which gives no benefit to the consumer or to the producer?

Mr. Amory: I have already given what I consider to be the causes of present prices, and those causes are almost all outside the control of the Government.

Mr. C. I. Orr-Ewing: Would my right hon. Friend agree that the facts given in the "Economist" this week show that no profiteering has taken place in the tea market?

Cheese

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Food (1) what special action was taken by his Department to prevent the deterioration of nearly 1,000 tons of Cheshire cheeses held in store in 1954 which became unfit for human consumption;
(2) the total weight of Cheshire cheeses under the control of his Department in 1954; what weight of Cheshire cheeses became unsuitable for human consumption; at what price per lb. it was sold as animal feedingstuffs; and the total loss to his Department in this connection;
(3) the total weight of all types of cheeses in 1954 which, under the control of his Department, became unsuitable for human consumption; how they were eventually disposed of; what was the average price per lb. realised; and what was the loss to his Department in this respect.

Mr. Amory: As regards Question No. 4, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to him by my hon. Friend on 14th February. Of the170,000 tons of cheeses of all types which my Department had to buy up to September, 1954, 1,400 tons—less than 1 per cent.—became unsuitable for human consumption, in spite of continuous efforts to clear it quickly by price reductions. The average price realised was about Id., and the loss about £200,000, or less than 1 per cent. of the value of the cheese bought by my Department in 1954—£28½ million.

Mr. Dodds: In regard to Question No. 3, can the right hon. Gentleman deny that some of the Cheshire cheeses were stored in old cotton mills, and that the Department was warned what would happen to them? Would it not have been possible to have got rid of some of the cheese by using it in hospitals or in old people's homes rather than see it deteriorate in the way it did?
In connection with Question No. 4, does the Minister appreciate that the abject confession of losing nearly £250,000 on cheese will be noted with deep interest in many districts like northwest Kent, where Cheshire cheese was very difficult to come by?

Mr. Amory: As far as the first part of that rather long supplementary question is concerned, I would remind the hon.


Gentleman that I said that during the period in question every effort was made by price reductions to dispose of the lower-quality cheese. It was stored in a variety of places because we had not enough cold storage space, but it was inspected regularly throughout the period. As regards the last part of the supple mentary question, I would say that, according to the best of my information, it was ordinary commercial experience before the war that of these rather perish able cheeses some proportion was disposed of as animal feed. If the hon. Member considers the proportion here, he will see it is extremely low——

Mr. Dodds: Nearly one thousand five hundred tons.

Mr. Amory: The proportion was extremely low, and I do not think, though I regret any loss, that it can be regarded as at all abnormal.

Mr. Dodds: Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the answer, I propose to raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Mrs. Mann: asked the Minister of Food why he permitted an increase on the price of cheese sold by his Department of l0d. per lb. in December, 1951, and thereafter permitted cheese priced at 1s. 2d. in October, 1951, to rise to 2s. 6d. per lb. during 1952 to 1954, when the stocks of his Department were so high that they had to be disposed of at a substantial loss.

Mr. Amory: The controlled price of cheese never rose above 2s. 4d. Of the actual increase of 1s. 2d. per lb. under control l0d. was imposed in pursuance of the policies of the late Government.

Mrs. Mann: How is it that the late Government did not impose the increase? It was the present Government.

Mr. Amory: There are quite a number of things that the late Government omitted to do.

Subsidies

Mr. Jay: asked the Minister of Food what foods are now subsidised.

Mr. Amory: I would refer the right hon. Member to the full particulars of the subsidies administered by my Department contained in the reply given to the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) on 15th February.

Mr. Jay: Is it not the case that bread, milk and meat are all still subsidised? If the Minister can subsidise them without rationing them, why is it impossible to subsidise tea without rationing it?

Mr. Amory: Bread and milk are both commodities for which the demand is comparatively inelastic, and both are in ready supply. I think that that is the answer. The answer to the rationing point is that if we impose price control on commodities that are in short supply then we are almost bound to impose rationing, or we force the commodities under the counter.

Mr. Willey: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree, with regard to the answer to which he has referred, that this list is, in the main, one of trading losses, and not subsidies at all in the usual sense—merely losses sustained by the Ministry in realising its stocks? Does he not think that the Ministry ought to have done better? How was there a loss of several million on sugar?

Mr. Nabarro: After six years of groundnuts.

Mr. Amory: I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman. I think that if he looks at the list he will see that, in the main, they are what are generally called producer subsidies. It is extremely difficult to draw a line between producer subsidies and consumer subsidies, and they overlap, but the loss on Government trading formed a small proportion of the total, a i against it there were profits.

Mr. Jay: As the previous Minister derationed tea when the price was at 3s. 8d. per lb., why is it not possible to bring the price down to, say, 5s. per lb. by a subsidy without having to ration it?

Mr. Amory: One factor is the demand for tea, which has increased per head.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is it not perfectly clear that the demand for tea is inelastic? Is that not one of the reasons why the price has gone up so sharply? Can the right hon. Gentleman make out any case for paying a subsidy on bread and refusing to pay one on tea?

Mr. Amory: As I have pointed out, tea is in short supply. Bread and milk are not in short supply.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Minister of Food how much of the supplementary estimate of £16,600,000 for fat-stock was required for direct subsidy payments to pig producers.

Mr. Amory: About £15 million.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Will the right hon. Gentleman assure us that he will not penalise the pig producers by cutting the subsidy before he investigates the very wide margin between what the pig producer receives and what the unfortunate housewife has to pay?

Mr. Amory: That is one of the matters which is very much under discussion at present.

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Food what improvements have been made in the administration of the subsidy on eggs and egg products.

Mr. Amory: It would be impracticable to give the necessary details within the compass of an answer to a Question. I am writing to the hon. Member.

Mr. Willey: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman, but does he realise that the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General shows that the Ministry made efforts to keep up the price of eggs, and is his Department still trying to do so?

Mr. Amory: As regards the observations of the Comptroller and Auditor General, I think that last week my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary asked the hon. Gentleman to await the reply which the Department will be making to the Public Accounts Committee on the Report.

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Food why the current subsidies on fat-stock amount to£82 million, and a profit on imported meat and bacon of £6,500,000, whereas the subsidy on meat and bacon last year was £57 million, and in view of the fact that there have been increases in retail prices.

Mr. Amory: The difference is due to increased supplies of home-produced meat, mainly pigs, and lower profits on imported meat and bacon.

Mr. Willey: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what is the relationship between the further £16½ million for which he is

asking in the Supplementary Estimate and the increased retain prices which have sent up the cost-of-living index, and what does his hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary mean by referring to distribution costs?

Mr. Amory: I cannot quite understand that supplementary question, but there does not seem to me to be any direct relationship between the two.

Mr. Willey: In view of the inability of the right hon. Gentleman to understand the point, Mr. Speaker, I beg to give notice that I shall take an early opportunity of raising this matter on the Adjournment.

Prices

Mrs. Mann: asked the Minister of Food when control by order was removed from home-killed and imported meat, butter, margarine, and cooking fat, what trade agreements were negotiated by his Department in regard to retail prices; and, since prices of these have risen substantially since price control ended, if he will seek new trade agreements or reimpose control.

Mr. Amory: Rationing and retail price control of butter, margarine, and cooking fat came to an end on 8th May, and of meat on 4th July, 1954. No trade agreements about retail prices of these foods were negotiated. Butter, margarine, and cooking fat are now available at prices below those under control.
As regards the third part of the Question, to restore price control now would mean a return to all the drawbacks of the take it or leave it system of allocation and rationing.

Mrs. Mann: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that butter, in 1951, was 2s. 6d. per lb., that then, when it was derationed, it was 3s. 4d., and that today it is anything between 3s. l0d. and 4s. 2d. per lb.? Is he aware that, due to the in crease in the index figure of the cost of living, the iron and steel workers in my constituency, whose earnings are tied to the cost of living, have had an increase in their wages? The inference is, there fore, that the prices of iron and steel are bound to go up, because the right hon. Gentleman is closing his eyes, is adopting a do-nothing policy, which means that——

Hon. Members: Question.

Mr. Speaker: Order. These supplementary questions are really very long.

Mr. Amory: I think I must remind the hon. Lady that the cost of living has gone up very much less in the last three years.

Mr. G. Jeger: asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware of the continuous rise in food prices since October, 1951; and whether he will hold an inquiry into causes of these increases and the possibility of reducing food prices to their 1951 levels.

Mr. Amory: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my hon. Friend on 14th February to the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Lewis). I do not think that an inquiry would serve any useful purpose.

Mr. Jeger: I understand that the Minister accepts no responsibility for the rise in prices, but will he not explain to the House that he is as concerned as we are about these rises in prices since 1951, particularly in view of the Election pledges which placed him and his colleagues on that side of the House? Would he not welcome the opportunity of putting the blame where it really belongs, which is what this inquiry would do?

Mr. Amory: I am always concerned at increases in prices, but I would point out to the hon. Gentleman that the standard of living in this country has risen in the last three years.

Captain Pilkington: Would my right hon. Friend say how the continuous rise of prices since 1951 compares with the continuous rise of prices under the previous Administration?

Mr. Warbey: asked the Minister of Food which principal foodstuffs as included in the cost-of-living index have decreased in price since October, 1951, and by what percentage in each case; and which have increased in price since October, 1951, and by what percentage in each case.

Mr. Amory: I would refer the hon. Member to the figures published quarterly in the Ministry of Labour Gazette on the basis set out in paragraph 84 of the Report of the Cost of Living Advisory Committee (Cmd. 8481). The last set of figures were published in November, 1954, and the next should be available in March.

Mr. Warbey: Why is the right hon. Gentleman afraid to give these figures plainly to the House? Is it because they would reveal how lamentably the Government have failed to carry out their promises to keep down the cost of living?

Mr. Amory: I am always glad to answer Questions if they are going to supplement information which is available, but where the information is already available I am not sure that it would be right to take up the time of the House in giving it.

Mr. H. Morrison: Would it not have taken the right hon. Gentleman no more time specifically to have answered my hon. Friend's Question than it took for this elaborate course of evasion in order that he should not have to give the crude facts to the House?

Mr. Amory: I would agree that some of the Questions are taking rather longer to dispose of than I had hoped.

National Milk Loaf

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Minister of Food what additional ingredients will be contained in the national milk loaf; and what price increase he has approved for this purpose.

Mr. Amory: Skim milk powder is the only new ingredient but bakers may wish to add more fat and other ingredients, which are already permitted. The price addition must not exceed what is reasonable in relation to the extra cost of ingredients.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is the Minister trying to do something to avoid another flop, similar to that which attended the attempt to introduce white bread? Is he not aware that merely to add skim milk powder to the loaf will produce a quite indigestible product? Is he not exercising some control over the additional price to be charged for this loaf?

Mr. Amory: I should like to make it clear that I am not introducing the milk loaf. All that I am doing is to allow bakers to produce and sell a milk loaf if they can do so. The price must be reasonable. If it is not reasonable, the traders concerned will be prosecuted through the courts.

Japanese Canned Fish

Dr. Broughton: asked the Minister of Food what tests for radioactivity have been applied by his Department to canned fish imported from Japan.

Mr. Amory: None, Sir. I am advised that the risks to public health are negligible.

Dr. Broughton: Is the Minister aware that some thousands of tons of canned fish from Japan were imported into this country in1954, and in view of Press reports that fish with radioactive particles in their bodies have been caught off the Japanese coast since the hydrogen bomb explosion, does he not think it would be wise to test some of this food to find out if it is safe for human consumption?

Mr. Amory: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that this is a very important matter indeed, but the advice that I have had on this matter is both authoritative and definite.

Mr. Beswick: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us upon what the advice is based, if no tests were made?

Mr. Amory: Not in detail without notice.

Consumption

Mr. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Food (1) the total meat consumption of the nation for 12 months ended on the latest convenient date and the comparative figure for 12 months prior to the end of rationing; and by how much percentum, and in tons, respectively, meat consumption has increased;
(2) the total bacon and ham consumption of the nation for 12 months ended on the latest convenient date and the comparative figure for 12 months prior to the end of rationing; and by how much percentum, and in tons, respectively, bacon and ham consumption has increased;
(3) to state, respectively, the total butter and the total margarine consumption of the nation for 12 months ended on the latest convenient date and the comparative figures for 12 months prior to the end of rationing; and by how much per centum, and in tons, respectively, butter and margarine consumption has increased.

Mr. Amory: As the answer involves a number of figures, I will, with my hon. Friend's leave, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Nabarro: Why is my right hon. Friend anxious that the House should not be given the benefit orally of these highly satisfactory figures of the increased consumption of basic foodstuffs? Is it not a fact that the consumption of meat since the end of rationing has increased by no less than 12½ per cent., and that of other foodstuffs has increased commensurately? Is not this evidence of the success of the policy of Her Majesty's Government?

Mr. Mitchison: On a point of order. Is it in order for an hon. Member to give, by way of a supplementary question, the answer to the Question which he himself has asked?

Mr. Speaker: That is rather a complicated question, but the truth is that supplementary questions from both sides of the House frequently seem to me to consist more of giving information than of seeking it.

Mr. Nabarro: Further to that point of order. Is it not the fact that the essence of a successful supplementary question should be that the Member knows the answer before he puts it?

Mr. Speaker: If I may say so, the essence of a successful supplementary question is that it should be short.

Dr. Summerskill: rose——

Mr. Nabarro: On a point of order. I was allowed to ask a supplementary question to my original Question, and as nearly the whole of Question Time has been monopolised by Members of the Opposition Front Bench may I protect the rights of private Members on the Government side of the House by asking that my supplementary question should now be answered by the Minister?

Mr. Speaker: The Minister said that he was circulating the answer to the hon. Gentleman's Question in the OFFICIAL REPORT, and it seems to me that a further supplementary question in advance of the publication of that answer might be a waste of time.

Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport: On a point of order. My hon. Friend had three Questions down to the Minister. Would he not have been entitled to


refuse to accept one answer to those three Questions, and to have insisted on a separate answer, in which event he could have asked three supplementary questions? But my hon. Friend played cricket. He said, "No, I will put them all together." Therefore, could he not, on those grounds, ask a much longer supplementary question?

Mr. Speaker: Order. We must pass on to the next Question. I must make it clear to the House that when a Question is asked for information which consists

Because estimates of unrationed consumption are available only for the six
months July-December, 1954, the table gives comparison between the consumption in this six
months, and in the 12 months prior to derationing, i.e. July, 195.-June, 1954. Since derationing
and decontrol took place in the middle of 1954, it has not been possible to measure consumption
with the same accuracy or on precisely the same basis as under conditions of control.


Kind of Food
Consumption in July, 1953-June, 1954 (thousand tons)
Consumption in July-December, 1954 (Provisional) (thousand
tons)
Increase or Decrease


Total
Monthly average
Total
Monthly average
per cent.


Meat (Great Britain) 
1,950
162
1,100
184
+13


Bacon and ham (United Kingdom) 
569
47
280
46
- 2


Butter (United Kingdom)
312
26
170
28
+ 8


Margarine (United Kingdom)
398
33
220*
37
+ 11


* This figure is the sum of home-production and imports and is not strictly comparable with the consumption estimate for July-December, 1953. Home production during July-December, 1953, amounted to 215,000 tons and imports were negligible.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF SUPPLY

Motor Car Bumpers (Height)

Mr. Russell: asked the Minister of Supply what progress has been made in the design of motor cars in recent years towards standardising the height of bumpers above the ground.

The Minister of Supply (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): This is a matter for motor car manufacturers and I believe that the industry is well aware of the desirability of as much uniformity as possible in bumper heights. The great variation in size of cars, however, presents considerable difficulty. It is becoming the practice to fit cars with overriders, and this is of special importance in North American markets.

Mr. Russell: Would my right hon. and learned Friend not agree that bumpers are useless unless they are the same

of many figures, it is proper to circulate the answer in the OFFICIAL REPORT, since it is hard for the House to catch up with a long string of figures given from the Dispatch Box. When it is a bona fide request for information, one supplementary question is in order, but it is turning the proceedings at Question Time into an argument when the occasion is made one for debate instead of one for seeking information.

Following is the information:

height, and would he do everything to ensure, without legislation, that they are the same height?

Mr. Lloyd: It is probably desirable to avoid legislation, but I think the point about the overrider meets a great deal of what my hon. Friend has said.

Mr. Woodburn: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that some years ago the manufacturers agreed to this, and is he not further aware that many accidents take place because of bumpers interlocking at parking places and elsewhere, and that a considerable amount of damage arises from the discrepancy in the height of bumpers?

Mr. Lloyd: I agree that there is a British Standard, but there is also considerable difficulty from the point of view of the difference in the size of cars.

Mr. Langford-Holt: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the worst feature is that of cars which do not have bumpers at all, and that an overrider cannot be fitted to a bumper that is not there?

Sheet Steel (Supply)

Mr. Albu: asked the Minister of Supply what report he has received from the Iron and Steel Board, under the provisions of Sections 5 and 6 of the Iron and Steel Act, 1953, concerning the present shortage of steel sheet and the problems raised by the expansion plans of the motor industry.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I have not received any report from the Iron and Steel Board under the provisions mentioned by the hon. Member but I have had reports from time to time on the steel supply position generally, including sheet steel. In addition, I received recently from the Board a Report on the Development of the Industry from 1953–1958 which I shall, in accordance with Section 16 (2) of the Iron and Steel Act, 1953, be laying before the House tomorrow. This Report shows that considerable developments of sheet steel production are taking place, and that the problems raised by the expansion plans of the motor industry and other users are being borne in mind.

Mr. Albu: In view of the fact that imports of steel sheet are now running at the annual rate of £10 million a year, and in view of the consequent effects on our balance of payments and the further expansion plans of the industry if this goes on, is this not a matter about which the Government must be very much concerned? Are they not in some difficulty owing to the fact that any plan for an expansion of the production of steel sheet must be that of an individual firm at the present time instead of that of the industry as a whole?

Mr. Lloyd: That is not quite true because the Iron and Steel Board has an over-riding responsibility, but if the hon. Gentleman will wait until the Report is placed before the House tomorrow, I think he will see the way in which the matter is being tackled.

New Rifle

Mr. Wyatt: asked the Minister of Supply when he expects the new rifle adopted for use in the Forces to be in production in Britain; and why it is not yet in production.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Production in the United Kingdom will not begin until troop trials of the rifles supplied from Belgium have been completed. In the meantime, production planning is proceeding, but in my view it is wiser not to commence production itself until we know the results of the troop trials.

Mr. Wyatt: Can the Minister explain what the Secretary of State for War meant over a year ago when he said that by adopting the Belgian rifle and abandoning the British rifle we should save a year in production; and is it not the case that this delay has been caused by redesign of the rifle in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade the Canadians and the Americans to adopt it? Is it not also the case that his Ministry is as incapable of producing rifles as it is of producing aircraft?

Mr. Lloyd: Perhaps we may discuss the latter part of that supplementary question on another occasion. So far as the first part of the question is concerned, I was asked why production had not commenced so far, and I gave the reply.

Mr. Shinwell: But did not the Prime Minister state, nearly three years ago, that the Government preferred the Belgian rifle to the proposed British rifle, which was regarded by the War Office as the best in the world, and why have the Government allowed so much time to elapse in view of the decision to enter into production?

Mr. Lloyd: The right hon. Gentleman is well aware of the advantages of having the Belgian rifle, namely, proceeding towards standardisation.

Mr. Shinwell: But is the Minister aware that I am not aware of any advantage to be derived from the Belgian rifle in preference to the British rifle? And may I ask him also why, in view of the statement made by the Prime Minister nearly three years ago, nothing has been done?

Mr. Lloyd: With regard to the suggested statement of the Prime Minister, I should like the right hon. Gentleman to give me chapter and verse for it.

Mr. Strachey: Would not the Minister agree that this interminable delay must stem from the fact that the present Government reversed the decision of the late Government, which was on the point of producing a British rifle, and can he give any reasons for that reversal or any excuse for the delay which has occurred?

Mr. Lloyd: The right hon. Gentleman says that the previous plan was on the point of producing the British rifle. He is quite wrong. No production order had been given.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: Is the Minister aware that the late Government had made the necessary preparations to go ahead with production as soon as the all-clear was given by the Government?

Mr. Lloyd: No production order had been placed.

Sapphire Jet Engines (Production)

Mr. J. Johnson: asked the Minister of Supply why the production schedule for Sapphire jet engines has fallen behind; and what steps he is taking to bring production up to the original programme.

Mr. Edelman: asked the Minister of Supply what measures he is taking in order to bring the production of Sapphire jet engines up to schedule.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The production of Sapphire jet engines fell somewhat behind programme because on testing the engine it was found desirable to replace certain rigid piping with flexible piping. Arrangements have been made to increase the rate of production of the flexible piping. The target for engine production is set some time in advance of the requirements of aircraft manufacturers for engines, to allow for temporary delays in production for reasons such as this. There has not been delay in meeting the requirements of the aircraft manufacturers.

Mr. Johnson: Whilst thanking the Minister for that answer, may I ask him if he is aware that there is much disquiet amongst the Coventry workers engaged on this job, and can he give an assurance to the House that he will personally look into this matter and guarantee that it will catch up with the schedule?

Mr. Lloyd: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his supplementary question. This is an improvement which has

been arrived at in the course of development, and I will see that it does not hold up production.

Mr. Wigg: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that if there are more Avons produced that Sapphires, it means that the Hawker Hunter is being equipped with the engine which causes trouble when its guns are fired?

Mr. Lloyd: I do not think that that question arises out of this one.

Rocket-propelled Interceptor (Press Reports)

Mr. Beswick: asked the Minister of Supply if he is aware that, in the Italian Press, details have been given on a new rocket-propelled interceptor, with Mach speeds of operational heights quoted; and what representations he has made about these breaches of British security regulations.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: No, Sir. I have been unable to trace the Press report to which the hon. Members refers, but if he will let me have details I will make inquiries.

Mr. Beswick: I will certainly send the Minister details, but is he aware that even if he cannot trace this particular case, there are a good many instances of information being circulated in the foreign Press when that information is denied to the British public in responsible British journals at home; and is the right hon. and learned Gentleman satisfied that present Press security regulations are working satisfactorily?

Mr. Lloyd: This Question refers to an Italian paper, but I agree that there are a number of speculative and often inaccurate reports in the foreign Press about what is happening in this country.

Comet Aircraft (Additional Cost)

Mrs. White: asked the Minister of Supply the estimated additional cost of bringing Comet II and Comet III to the standard now required; and what financial contribution the Government is proposing to make towards meeting this extra cost.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The manufacturers will have to negotiate with their customers about these extra costs. It would, therefore, not be right for me to give any


figures. With regard to the Government's contribution, the price paid for any Comet IIs bought for Government service will include the cost of bringing them up to the required standard. The Ministry of Supply proposes to assist in the further development of the Comet series and in the tests to which the new Comet aircraft will be subjected to ensure their safety. This programme and its cost is now being discussed with the manufacturers.

Fighter Aircraft (Super-Priority)

Mr. Wigg: asked the Minister of Supply why the White Paper on the Supply of Military Aircraft, Command Paper No. 9388, does not mention the system of super-priority for certain types of fighter aircraft announced by the Prime Minister in March, 1952; whether this system is still in operation; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The main purpose of super-priority was to ensure that production was not held up by shortage of materials and other resources. As the White Paper shows, it is in development rather than production that the difficulties have been encountered which have held up re-equipment of the Services with aircraft. The system is still in operation, and has produced valuable results.

Mr. Wigg: Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that if super-priority had been a success paragraph 1 of the White Paper would have said so? Is it not a fact that the impetuous action of the Prime Minister in interfering in a subject which he does not understand has thrown the whole of the aircraft industry into chaos?

Mr. Lloyd: I do not agree at all. At a time of shortages, super-priority was of value. To give one example, in the case of the Valiant it was a distinct advantage.

Mr. Shinwell: Does that mean that there are no shortages now, and that, therefore, there is no need for super-priority?

Mr. Lloyd: It means that the situation has very much improved since the right hon. Gentleman left office.

Mr. Wigg: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware of what he said? He said that super-priority had been extended to the Valiant bomber. Will he tell the

House when super-priority was extended from fighter aircraft to bomber aircraft? The Prime Minister's original statement said that super-priority applied exclusively to fighters.

Mr. Lloyd: My information is that the V-bombers have been on the super-priority list. If the hon. Gentleman will put a Question on the Order Paper, I will confirm that.

Night Fighters and Fighter- Bombers

Mr. Wigg: asked the Minister of Supply what type of British night fighter is capable of equalling the performance and fire power of the United States F86D.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: It would be wrong for me to give a detailed comparison between British aircraft and American aircraft which would involve disclosing matters which are secret. In any case the F86D is a single-seater night fighter and we do not use single-seater night fighters.

Mr. Wigg: If the right hon. and learned Gentleman is concerned about security, does he realise that by reading the American and British technical Press he can establish that the F86D has a speed of 660 m.p.h. compared with our fastest all-weather fighter's speed of 600 m.p.h.? Is he also aware that the F86D has a double-dish radar, and that none of our aircraft has anything like that?

Mr. Lloyd: What I am saying to the hon. Gentleman is that to draw a comparison between a single-seater night fighter and a two-seater night fighter is profitless. I do not believe that single-seater night fighters could operate in the climatic conditions around this country.

Mr. C. I. Orr-Ewing: Is it not the case that the complexity of the equipment of the single-seater night fighter F86D is so great that the serviceability of the squadrons using it is very low indeed compared with that of British squadrons which use twin-seater night fighter aircraft?

Mr. Lloyd: I think there are great advantages in having twin-seater night fighters.

Mr. Wigg: If the right hon. and learned Gentleman cannot make a comparison, why was the dishonest statement made in the White Paper—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—that our night fighter defences were better than anywhere else in the world?

Mr. Speaker: I do not know who was the author of the White Paper, but the hon. Member should not use terms like "dishonest" about other hon. Members.

Hon. Members: Withdraw.

Mr. Wigg: Certainly I will withdraw the word "dishonest," and I will replace it with "grossly misleading."

Mr. Lloyd: In reply to the supplementary question by the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), I would say that it is not possible to give a detailed comparison because there are many other factors besides speed and fire-power to be taken into account. The statement in the White Paper related to general performance, including the ground equipment and the equipment of the aircraft.

Mr. Shinwell: Is it not true that in the White Paper the Government have declared that our aircraft are capable, in the event of night attack, of putting up a performance better than any other defensive aircraft in the world? Is that true as compared with what the United States Air Force can put up?

Mr. Lloyd: That is most certainly true.

Several Hon. Members: rose——

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Shinwell.

Mr. Shinwell: Do we take it——

Mr. Orr-Ewing: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker——

Mr. Speaker: I observed the right hon. Gentleman rise a second time, and I have now called him. He is a former Minister of Defence.

Mr. Shinwell: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman now saying quite categorically that our air defence in respect of possible night attack is superior to that possessed by the United States?

Mr. Lloyd: I am saying it quite definitely. I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman, who was himself responsible for ordering many of these aircraft, should now seek to depreciate them.

Several Hon. Members: rose——

Mr. Speaker: Order. The House can debate these matters later. We cannot debate them at Question Time.

Mr. Wigg: asked the Minister of Supply on what date production contracts were completed for the Venom fighter- bomber FB1 and FB4 and the Venom night-fighter NF2 and NF3; what con tracts were cancelled; and what com pensation was paid in respect of such cancellations.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Production is not yet completed of any of the four marks of this aircraft, though the great bulk of the existing orders for the FB1s and the NF2s have been completed. In addition to orders placed previously, over 1,000 Venoms were ordered in the first nine months of 1951. Since October, 1951, about 750 have been cancelled and 280 changed to later marks. No compensation was paid, but materials and work done which are no longer required are being paid for at a total estimated cost of about £3· million.

Mr. Wigg: Do not the right hon. and learned Gentleman's answers to these Questions provoke wonderment as to whether the Prime Minister has undertaken a policy of unilateral disarmament without consulting either the Cabinet or the House of Commons?

Mr. Wyatt: Is it not the case that the Venom night fighter becomes uncontrollable at a speed of -85 Mach, and is it not the case, therefore, that as the Americans also have the Sabre F100 night fighter, which is superior to either Meteor or Venom night fighters, it is totally untrue of the Government to pretend that we have a more effective night fighter defence than the Americans?

Mr. Lloyd: Without going into detailed comparisons between individual aircraft, I repeat that if we take the whole system into account our system is more efficient than any other in the world.

Mr. Follick: That is what Chamberlain said in 1938.

Electric Wires and Cables Industry (Arrangements)

Mr. Palmer: asked the Minister of Supply (1) if he is satisfied that the electric cable-making associations brought their trading arrangements into conformity with the conclusions of the


Monopolies Commission by 31st December last as requested by Her Majesty's Government; and if he will make a statement;
(2) if the cable-making associations have now furnished the Government with information about the relationship between the prices charged to the British Electricity Authority and those charged to other users of electric cables in those type ranges where the Monopolies Commission reported that no competition exists; and if he will state what action he has taken;
(3) if the associations of manufacturers of telephone cables have yet furnished the Government with information about the prices charged to general users and those charged to the General Post Office, based on cost investigation; and what action he has taken.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I am glad to have this opportunity of adding to the two statements made by my predecessor on 20th May and 30th July, 1954. The Cable Makers' Association and the Covered Conductors' Association have assured me that they have, as requested by Her Majesty's Government, brought their arrangements, as from 1st January, 1955, into conformity with the Commission's conclusions, subject to the two reservations explained in my predecessor's statement of 20th May.
The Cable Makers' Association have also assured me that prices charged to users other than the British Electricity Authority for mains and super-tension cable have borne and will continue to bear a direct and reasonable relationship to those charged to the British Electricity Authority. As regards telephone cable, the Association states that it is still negotiating prices with the General Post Office.

Mr. Palmer: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman make details of the new arrangements available to the House so that hon. Members can judge whether the Government are really in earnest in fighting monopoly practices in British industry?

Mr. Lloyd: I certainly cannot do so at this stage. The position is that the Associations have given me assurances that they are acting in the way I have described. I think it will be for me, in accordance with the statement made by my predecessor, to review these arrangements at an appropriate time, and then we shall

have to consider the question of making information available to the House.

Mr. C. I. Orr-Ewing: When the negotiations take place between the cable manufacturers and the Post Office, may we see the end of the ring with which the Post Office has now been dealing for many years, and will it be possible for non-ring manufacturers to enter this important field?

Mr. Lloyd: I think it would be better for me to wait and see the result of the negotiations before I promise any statement.

Mr. Gaitskell: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman give us some idea as to when the negotiations will be completed, and can we then have a full statement from him, possibly circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT, with details of the arrangements?

Mr. Lloyd: The procedure laid down, which I should not have thought unsatisfactory, is that at some stage I have to satisfy myself that the assurances have been carried out. I think that after that would be the time for making information available.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSE OF COMMONS CATERING

Mr. Crouch: asked the hon. Member for Woolwich, West, as Chairman of the Kitchen Committee, what percentage of butter used by his Department is home-produced; what percentage is Empire-produced; and what percentage is foreign.

Mr. W. Steward: The butter used is 100 per cent. Empire.

Mr. Crouch: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that ample supplies of pure homemade English butter are available, made by the Milk Marketing Board and Southwestern Dairies, Sherborne, to mention but two sources, at prices only 2d. per lb. retail above that of Danish butter? Why can we not have all-English butter served in this House? In view of the hon. Gentleman's statement that there are 80 pats of butter to the lb., how can that possibly affect the price charged to hon. Members?

Mr. Steward: I would point out to the hon. Gentleman that Empire butter is 4d. per lb. cheaper than home-produced butter. However, I will submit his observations to the members of the Committee at their next meeting.

EUROPEAN COAL AND STEEL COMMUNITY (AGREEMENT)

3.30 p.m.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Duncan Sandys): I beg to move,
That this House approves the Agreement concerning the relations between the United Kingdom and the European Coal and Steel Community, signed on 21st December, 1954.
Having been actively connected with the movement for European unity in the years immediately following the war, hon. Members can imagine that it is a particular pleasure and privilege for me to have the opportunity of opening this debate and commending this Agreement to the House.
It was in May, 1950, that M. Robert Schuman announced his famous plan, and soon afterwards a conference was convened in Paris for the purpose of translating that plan into a treaty. In addition to the six continental countries mainly concerned, Britain also was invited to take part. As hon. Members will recall, there were some differences between hon. Members on this side of the House, who were at that time in opposition, and hon. Members opposite who were then the Government, about whether we should have accepted the invitation and attended the conference. I think I am right in saying, however, that we were all completely agreed on the main issue, namely, that Britain must retain her complete freedom to determine for herself her own economic policies in the interests of her people, and that, therefore, it was out of the question that Britain should become a full member of a supranational organisation such as was then proposed.
The fact that we were unable to join the Community did not in any sense imply that Britain was unsympathetic toward the Schuman Plan. On the contrary, it was warmly welcomed here as representing one of the first major results of the policy of European unity supported by all parties.
Coal and steel are the basic materials upon which almost all modern industry rests. The decision of the six countries of the Community to create by progressive stages a common market in these two vital products and to set up joint institutions to

control it was undoubtedly an outstanding event in international economic relations. Britain's output of coal and steel is greater than that of any other country in Western Europe, but the six countries together produce slightly more coal than we do and more than twice as much steel. Since these are two of our greatest industries, it is clear that the fiscal and commercial policies which the Community may at any time decide to pursue must be a matter of very great interest and importance to us. In the same way, the policies which we decide to adopt in this sphere are of considerable concern to the countries on the Continent.
From the start, Britain has made it abundantly clear that she wishes to cooperate as fully as possible with the new European Coal and Steel Community. The late Government, with the support of all parties, declared their desire—these were the exact words,
to establish the closest possible association with the Community at all stages in its development.
On more than one occasion the present Government have reaffirmed that policy in very similar terms.
In 1952, a British delegation, headed by Sir Cecil Weir, was established at the seat of the High Authority in Luxembourg. I think this is an appropriate moment for me to express the Government's appreciation of the work done over these years by Sir Cecil Weir. His wide experience of industry in Britain and the respect and trust which he enjoys on the Continent have been of great value in establishing an atmosphere of mutual confidence and understanding during these first and extremely important formative years.
The next step in the development of our relations was taken by the High Authority. In a letter dated 24th December, 1953, and published at the time as a White Paper, the President of the High Authority, M. Jean Monnet—who is not only a good European, but has shown himself a true friend of this country—proposed the creation of a formal association between the United Kingdom and the European Coal and Steel Community. He suggested that the basis of this association should be the reduction or elimination of protective measures between our respective markets in coal and steel. He also suggested the acceptance of certain rules


or principles which should govern our commercial policy in this field.
Her Majesty's Government studied M. Monnet's proposals thoroughly and most sympathetically. But we came to the conclusion that it was too soon to try to settle the final form which our relationship with the Community should take and the precise nature of the policies which should inspire it. We felt—and I believe we wereright—that it would be wiser to take a more modest step and to confine ourselves, at this stage, to the creation of machinery to promote fuller understanding of one another's problems, and to facilitate co-operation on current issues, as and when they arose.
In the subsequent negotiations I explained our views to M. Monnet and his colleagues. At the same time, I emphasised that we regarded this association not as a static contractual arrangement to be denned by treaty now, once and for all, but rather as a growing relationship which would develop progressively through the practical experience of meeting and working together.
This essentially empirical and British approach is somewhat different from the more logical and legal attitude which our Continental friends usually prefer. That is why we are particularly indebted to the High Authority and to the six Governments for their understanding of the British position and for their willingness to negotiate the Agreement upon this basis. The Agreement creates what we believe to be convenient and effective machinery for the continuous exchange of information and for consultation upon matters of common interest in regard to coal and steel. The scope of these arrangements is set out in Articles 6, 7 and 8 of the Agreement, which has been published as a White Paper.
Article 6 gives a list of some of the questions which, in our view, are likely to be the subjects of joint discussions. They naturally include all the main problems of these two great basic industries, production, estimates of future demand, exports, imports, technical developments and price policy. Exchange of information and mutual consultation on these very important matters will, in itself, be of great value. However, it may well be that as a result of these consultations we and the Community will come to the con-

clusion that it is to our mutual advantage to take common and complementary action upon a particular question. I certainly hope so, but I would emphasise once again to the House that we are not committed to anything beyond the exchange of information and consultation.
Article 7 deals specifically with the possibility that, in conditions of slump or scarcity, we or the Community, or both of us, might wish to adopt emergency measures to restrict imports or exports. The Article provides that, before we do so, we should discuss the situation with one another. I wish to make it quite clear that the undertaking to consult beforehand does not limit the freedom of either party subsequently to go ahead with the action which it proposes, subject to its other international obligations. On the other hand, after discussions such as are envisaged in this Article have taken place, it is quite possible that other ways may be found of dealing with the difficulties arising from conditions of surplus or scarcity in a manner which, while being equally effective, may interfere less with trade between us.
Article 8 is also concerned with commercial policy. It indicates the desire of both of us to facilitate the flow of trade between us in these two important commodities. That is the whole object of the Article. With that in mind it provides that there shall be an examination of restrictions and other factors affecting trade between us. The examinations—to quote from the Article—are to be
with a view to making such proposals for their reduction or elimination"—
and I would ask hon. Members to listen to the next words—
as may be agreed for the mutual benefit of the Community and the United Kingdom.
I quote that passage in order to point out that we have entered into no commitment to reduce our steel tariff, or otherwise to change our commercial policy. In any case, no one-sided concessions are contemplated. Any proposals which may result from these examinations are to be "for the mutual benefit of both parties." That is the essence of the whole Agreement.
Article 9 is intended primarily to make it clear that the Agreement is in no way directed against third parties. In particular, we wished to emphasise that any measure for closer co-operation between


us which may be decided upon would not be designed to create cartels for the exclusive advantage of producers. In addition, we thought it desirable to state explicitly that any arrangement which might be made must take into account the special relationship between Britain and the rest of the Commonwealth.
The other Articles are principally concerned with creating the necessary machinery. The main channel of contact will be through the new Council of Association, which is to be composed of four representatives of the United Kingdom Government and four representatives of the High Authority. Wherever possible the British element will include one Minister. It will also include one member of the National Coal Board and one member of the Iron and Steel Board.
The appointment of members of outside bodies, as of right, to a Government delegation—which can be seen from the exchange of letters which have been published with the Agreement—is an unusual procedure, but it is the natural consequence of the unusual position which these two Boards have come to occupy in our economic structure. Parliament has conferred upon them extensive powers and responsibilities. So much so that a British team at the Council of Association which did not include members of those two Boards would, I believe, be unable to speak with real authority upon many of the problems which fall within the scope of the Agreement.
Throughout the negotiations both Boards have, of course, been closely consulted and, as hon. Members will observe from the White Paper, the two chairmen joined with me in signing the Agreement. I should like to say how much the Government have valued the broad-minded co-operation which they have received from Sir Hubert Houldsworth and Sir Archibald Forbes and their colleagues over this whole problem.
It is through the Council of Association and its committees that our relations with the European Coal and Steel Community will be primarily conducted. However, it seems likely to us that there will be questions on which more direct discussions with the individual Governments of the States concerned will be necessary and desirable. I have in mind such questions as tariffs and export subsidies. It is for this reason that the Agreement provides that there shall be

special meetings with the Council of Ministers of the member States. The importance which the six Governments attach to consultation with Britain is shown by the fact that the Agreement was signed not only by the High Authority, but also separately on behalf of each country. It is the six countries which will, in fact, ratify it.
To keep contact in the intervals between the meetings, it will be necessary for us to maintain a small permanent delegation in Luxembourg. The High Authority, similarly, wish to have a small delegation here in London. In the course of the negotiations, the question of diplomatic privileges and immunities was inevitably raised. Knowing the feelings of the House of Commons on this subject, which I myself fully share, I made it clear that no undertaking could be given until the views of Parliament could be ascertained, and no undertaking of any kind has, in fact, been given on this question.
When I explained the position, the High Authority readily accepted it. However, they not unreasonably asked that their delegation in London and ours in Luxembourg should be treated alike, which, as I say, was not a very unreasonable request. It means that if we were to grant no facilities to the High Authority's delegation here in London, our delegation in Luxembourg obviously could not expect to go on receiving the facilities which have been accorded to it during the last two and a half years.
I hope that the right hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens), who, I believe, is to speak for the party opposite, and other hon. Members, will think it worth while to express their opinions on this subject during the debate, so that the Government may know whether, in introducing the necessary one-Clause Bill, they can be sure of the support of the House of Commons. It would, naturally, be embarrassing to have controversy on a matter of this kind.
In conclusion, let me say that we do not regard this Agreement as an end in itself. It provides the machinery to facilitate consultation and co-operation. It creates a framework within which we sincerely hope a closer association between Britain and the Community will progressively develop. I have spoken mainly of the economic aspects of the Agree-


ment, but it also has considerable importance from the political standpoint, for it will rightly be interpreted as further evidence of Britain's determination at all times to play her part in promoting the unity and stability of Europe, and, by so doing, to contribute to the strength and peace of the free world.

3.53 p.m.

Mr. Alfred Robens: We are obliged to the Minister of Housing and Local Government for the way in which he has interpreted this Agreement, and we will try to answer some of the questions which he has put to us, particularly the one about the diplomatic status of the High Authority's delegation in London.
Before I proceed to deal with these matters, however, I should like to draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the fact that when we were the Government and there was a difference of opinion between us and the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends, then in opposition, over the question whether Britain should attend the initial conference in Paris, the invitation to the United Kingdom Government, it must always be remembered, was couched in very specific terms. Those specific terms—if my memory serves me rightly—meant that either we had to accept the principle of a supranational authority or we were not entitled to attend the conference.
Looking back, and in view of the right hon. Gentleman's speech today, it is clear that history has shown that we were right and that the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend's were wrong, because they would not accept the principle of a supranational authority for the very reasons given this afternoon. Therefore, when it is indicated, at is was by the right hon. Gentleman, that there was a difference of opinion between us, it is right that that fact should be stated. The fact that we had to accept this principle prevented us from attending the initial conference.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman's memory is somewhat at fault. We refused to accept the proposition put up by the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friends at that time because we thought it was much wiser to go to the conference and find out what was requested of us, rather than simply

to refuse to have anything to do with it at all. It was on that issue that the vote turned.

Mr. Robens: That is true, but the fact is that we were not prepared to accept the principle of a supranational authority, and the invitation was couched in those terms. I was going on to say that had the original invitation been to a conference at which the question of a supranational authority was to be discussed, there would have been no difficulty in attending, but, quite frankly, the Government of that day obviously could not bind itself in advance to accept a supranational authority. Now, however, both parties are agreed on a close association, and it is with that association that we have to concern ourselves this afternoon.
Before I turn to the Agreement itself, perhaps I ought to say something about the question that has been posed by the right hon. Gentleman about the diplomatic status of the High Authority's delegation in London. Obviously, we cannot expect that our delegation in Luxembourg should enjoy more privileges or greater rights than the High Authority's delegation here in London. However, I am anxious, as many hon. Members are, about the extension of diplomatic privileges. With the setting up of so many international organisations and with the very large number of persons now involved, the number having diplomatic immunity seems to me to be getting far too big for the original purpose for which the immunity was originally intended.
We would agree that whatever rights are accorded should apply equally to both delegations, but it seems to me that the right hon. Gentleman should seek the advice of Sir Cecil Weir, head of the British delegation in Luxembourg, to determine just what is required. Is it a fact that full diplomatic rights are really needed for the purpose of doing this job? I am sure that Sir Cecil Weir, after his experience in Luxembourg, would be able to advise the right hon. Gentleman on just what rights are necessary for the members of the delegation so that they may carry out their functions efficiently and adequately. I myself would accept the advice of Sir Cecil Weir, and I therefore say to the right hon. Gentleman that, in that case, I do not think there would be any difficulty when his one Clause Bill is brought before us.

Mr. Sandys: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Robens: Before going deeper into the terms of the Agreement, I should like to pay a tribute to M. Jean Monnet, who has announced his impending retirement as President of the High Authority. I believe Jean Monnet to be a man of very great vision. He really believes in the economic integration of Europe. His goal is peace and prosperity for Europe. Instead of a Europe composed of nations continually quarrelling with one another he wants to see a co-operative Europe.
Jean Monnet believes, as I believe, that if we want to get the nations of Europe to be co-operative, it is not sufficient just to make political agreements with one another. There has to be something much more binding than treaties of political contact. If we want to avoid quarrelling, we must have something much more—greater economic integration.
Jean Monnet, who was the great architect of this work, deserves the highest tribute from all of us in European Parliaments for the way in which he has brought his idea to fruition, small though it may be at this moment. I believe that historians will write of Jean Monnet that he was essentially a man with a practical mind, whose forward views placed him a quarter or perhaps half a century ahead of his fellow men. I hope that to whatever new sphere he goes he will be as successful there in securing achievements as he has been in securing them for the High Authority.
I wonder how many people in the United Kingdom know anything at all about the Coal and Steel Community. We, as a Parliament, will this evening tie the United Kingdom to a treaty of association with a new organisation—we shall not divide on this issue—with a Community which is an integration of six nations dealing with coal and steel on the Continent of Europe. Very few people indeed in the United Kingdom know what this Community means, either to themselves or to Europe.
The Community works within two limits. One is the geographical limit of the six nations and the other is the economic limit of dealing with coal and steel. These are the only fields of effective action in which the Community can operate. It has set up a body of Par-

liamentarians which has now had sufficient experience to develop authority of itself. It has no legislative powers. This body of Parliamentarians falls mainly into three parties, Christian Democrat, Socialist, and Liberal. It has no legislative power, but it has the one great power that it can dismiss or remove the High Authority, if it secures sufficient votes to do that.
Therefore, the Community has been gathering influence. As one who has been closely studying what the Community has been doing over the last few years, I think there is no doubt, despite the fact that it has no legislative power, that it has had a rapidly growing influence upon the policy of the High Authority. It is a lesson for us that in setting up these new organisations, these political sounding-boards, it is not always necessary that they should have legislative power. They can be very effective when they exercise power through influence, in the way in which this body of Parliamentarians of the European Coal and Steel Community has done.
When we look at what the Coal and Steel Community has done, what can we write down? It has a consultative committee of producers, workers and consumers, dealing with, helping, and advising the High Authority about coal and steel. The workers in Europe, in trade unions associated with the I.C.F.T.U., set up a liaison committee to deal with the problems of the workers. This is very important, because for the first time in our history there is a single body dealing with six countries' workers in two great industries to which the I.C.F.T.U. can make representations. That is very important.
The appreciable achievement of the High Authority has, I suppose, been in the field of the common market. Since the High Authority was established it has abolished all customs duties, quotas and double pricing. There are no currency restrictions of any kind in connection with coal and steel transactions. It has abolished transport discrimination.
From the end of January this year—the 20th, I think—extra freight charges on raw materials, scrap, iron ore, coal, and steel crossing frontiers are to be removed progressively during the next two years by agreement. That is to be done by stages which will reduce substantially—some people say by as much as 20 per


cent.—the charges on cross-frontier traffic within the common market. These are very great achievements, breaking down barriers between nations and leading to a freer interchange of trade. While this is being done only in two vital commodities at the moment, there is no reason why this should not be a model for community organisation extended into other economic fields.
There has also been a very marked increase in inter-State coal and steel movements within the Community, and a tendency towards price reduction. Coal movement has increased by 300,000 to 400,000 tons a month. Iron ore traffic from France into Belgium and Luxembourg has increased by 150,000 to 200,000 tons a month. Steel prices have been reduced by about 8 per cent. or 10 per cent., not wholly because of the Community, but partly because of the single market, which has produced competitive conditions within the steel industry in Europe. That is a very important factor.
There has been another good effect in relation to the recent recession and boom. In 1953, during a period of recession, the effects of the recession were limited by reason of the fact that there was a common market. Within Europe there were pockets of high demand. The consequence was that the high demand cushioned the effect of the general trade recession. That was a very good thing for Europe, and particularly for certain nations in Europe.
Conversely, in 1954 and under boom conditions, prices rose much more slowly than would have been the case without the common market, as in March, 1952. It is interesting to look at the two phases of the boom and to see how rapidly prices rose in 1952 and how much more slowly they rose in the boom period of 1954. It means that in Europe, and in the six nations, there are assured supplies. The competitive element is certainly encouraging modernisation. In the centre of France are five companies making a special steel. As the result of the opening up of markets these companies have now been merged, with surprisingly good results in technical improvement and modernisation.
The activities of the Community are not solely directed to the economic achievements. There are social implications

which are very important, when we consider the very large number of workers employed in these great industries. It was my very good fortune to meet M. Finet, who is a member of the High Authority and pays special attention to the problems of workers and to general social problems. At one time he was the general secretary of a very large Belgian trade union and formerly was President of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. He has been looking at the problems of workers throughout the six countries in coal and steel and has produced some remarkable results.
For example, in modernisation and technical improvement a certain amount of redundancy inevitably takes place, it may be only for a short time. The High Authority, through the work of M. Finet, has been able to make arrangements for the resettlement of redundant workers. At the request of member Governments, the High Authority can provide funds to tide workers over the period of unemployment. Presumably this money will be additional to any social insurance schemes that may be operating in the six nations.
In addition, the Authority can provide money for the re-training of workers in new skills within the same industry or, indeed, outside this industry, and to induce workers to move to other areas in Europe where there is work available.
In the United Kingdom, we have an interesting experience of this situation in relation to the Scottish coalfields—the Lanarkshire coalfields slowly reducing their manpower requirements and the newly-opened and developing mines in Fifeshire requiring large numbers of additional workers. As the Minister of Fuel and Power and his Parliamentary Secretary know so well, because we had, not a common market, but an integrated industry, it was possible to move redundant workers from Lanarkshire to Fifeshire with the minimum inconvenience to the workers concerned, and with great results to the coal industry in Scotland.
Exactly the same has been done through the High Authority. It has arranged, for example, free travel for the workers to the other places to which they are to go; it guarantees their housing, and it makes a substantial resettlement grant for each family of about £200 per family as a settling-in allowance, and, of course, it guarantees a new job.
Another interesting piece of work which M. Finet is doing—and I had the opportunity of discussing this with him at great length—is in connection with an application, at the suggestion of the unions, to the High Authority, that a collective bargaining code should be provided. We in this country, who are dependent on exports for our very lives, know full well the effect of cheap labour in various parts of the world on our own industrial production and competition. Europe would have similar difficulties to face if there were an enormous variation in wages and conditions for workers in the Coal and Steel Community.
Until the Community was formed, and until the six nations got together in this way, it was quite impossible to do anything about a collective bargaining code; but now, at the request of the unions—not at the request of the High Authority—we see M. Finet, a member of the High Authority, busily collecting all the information which would enable proper comparisons to be made between the various coal and steel workers in the six nations. That is not an easy task—indeed, it is a difficult one—because there are perquisites which go with various tasks and affect the wages element; but, nevertheless, because we have the High Authority, it is possible, particularly since M. Finet is a man with great trade union experience, to be able to produce the data on which ultimately to base a collective bargaining code. I do not know how far the unions and the High Authority will go, but, obviously, they may reach a stage when they will have wage agreements which are reasonably common to the six nations.
There we have some of the work which the Community has done. It is all excellect work which can only redound to the credit of the High Authority, and it will also benefit very considerably the European economic position.
At the same time, it would be a great mistake on our part if we thought that here was this great new idea, this new experiment in economic integration in Europe, and that all was well with it. I do not take that view at all; neither does the High Authority. It has many problems to deal with, and one of the great problems is to deal with the cartels. One of the fortunate effects of what has been done in this country under the public ownership of the coal industry is that,

while it is true that we have a coal monopoly, it is under the searchlight of public opinion all the time and the Government of the day have to accept responsibility to the consumers. Therefore, it is a monopoly with a public interest and not a private interest or a shareholders' interest.
In the six nations, of course, there is not public ownership; there is a mixed economy. The fact is that cartels are very strong on the Continent but I am satisfied after personal conversations with members of the High Authority that it is determined to deal with the bad effects of cartels. The power lies with the High Authority, but its problem is to work out methods by which that power can be exercised.
In May, 1953, price lists were issued by the Common Organisation for Ruhr Coal, the Brussels Steel Cartel and the French Technical Association of Coal Importers—three very large cartels. When the price lists were issued by these three large organisations—there are others, too, but I am merely picking out these three—there was a strangeness about the fact that the prices were so very similar. It was subsequently admitted that the reason the price lists were strangely similar was that there was, in fact, a gentleman's agreement on prices.
The High Authority so far has failed, in the main, to enforce the prohibition of price-fixing agreements. We in this House can understand how difficult it must be for the High Authority, in view of the discussions which we have had across these benches, when we have been dealing with the price fixing of motor car accessories, and so on—things within our own circuit, so to speak.
I am sure that the High Authority is really determined to prevent the bad effects of cartelisation, and I am sure we wish it well and hope that its efforts are successful in dealing with the bad effects of cartels and price fixing. It has this great problem of cartels with which it is dealing, and it may well take some time before it can reach a proper solution of the problem.
It has also the problem of harmonising the economic policies of the countries which come within the Community in the field of fuel and power. Of course, there is the problem of the use of solid fuel versus other fuels—again, a problem


which we have in this country—but, by virtue of the fact that the Minister has great oversight over these industries, he is able to produce a fuel policy which best suits the needs of this nation.
It is not easy, but, nevertheless, the Minister can see that it is possible to produce a sound commonsense fuel and power policy. That is what the High Authority will have to do for the six nations in Europe. It will be a very difficult task, because it means going back to Governments and harmonising their economic policies in the field of fuel and power, such as the development of hydro-electricity, fuel oil, and things of that kind.
Another problem—I am not mentioning them all but only those which, I think, are among the most important—is the free movement of labour. That is a very difficult problem indeed. Exporting unemployment and importing labour is a difficult matter for any country to deal with. We have our own troubles in this country. While we are short of workers in many industries, we find that there is great reluctance to permit foreign workers to work here. The Community desires to see this free exchange of labour, and I think it is absolutely right to get this exchange of labour, so that there are not large pockets of unemployment in one country and shortages of workers in another.
If we can get this movement of labour, I think it is a good thing to do so. There are many social and psychological problems associated with it, and, therefore, I say, in drawing attention to the accomplishments of the Community, that we must also look at some of the other great problems which face it.
Nevertheless, I am satisfied with the men who are running the High Authority. In association with a number of my hon. Friends, I have been to Luxembourg and have had an opportunity of talking with the personnel—apart from the High Authority—and I want to say that we were very greatly impressed by the very high standard shown. The thing that perhaps impressed us more than anything else was that these people had, in a way, lost their nationality. They were thinking, not in terms of their own nation and their own nation's economic advantage, but in terms of six-nation

Europeans, and looking at the thing as a whole. I think that there are some very fine people on the staff of the High Authority. It is those people who have done this great work and who have these great problems to face.
Now we turn to this association. What does it mean to us? It means, in the Minister's own words, that we shall have constant consultation at high level. That is all to the good. I approve wholeheartedly the idea of the Council of Association. I shall not weary the House with them now but I ask hon. Members to read very carefully Articles 6, 7,8 and 9, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. Article 6 refers to ten important items. It does not, of course, exclude other items.
Our own workers in the coal and steel industries should note that one of these items is the arrangement for the promotion of the safety, health and welfare of persons employed in the two industries. A lot of research work has been done—medical research work. If we can exchange the benefits of our knowledge with the other nations now represented by the High Authority and bring a great deal of extra safety, health and welfare to those workers, it will be a good thing.
It is a good thing that, when additional restrictions upon trade are even being considered—either by the High Authority or by the United Kingdom Government—to be able to get together and explain why we need them. It may well be that out of consultation and discussion of that kind it may be found that they are not necessary. Some method may be discovered by which it will be possible to meet in another way the problem which it was proposed to meet by additional restrictions. I think that is an excellent thing to do.
In Article 8 we see the desire for a freer and more flexible trade—a greater degree of trade between nations. I call attention to the important fact in Article 9 that the Council of Association, which is the body upon which our own representatives will sit, is there not merely to concern itself with the people who control—whether by public or by private ownership—the coal and steel industries of the United Kingdom and of the six member-nations of the Community. It is there to give adequate consideration to the interests of the consumers of the products


of those two great industries. I hope that our representatives will always bear in mind that the consumers' interest is paramount above all else, because it is consumer demand that will expand the economy, increase the purchasing power and raise the standard of life for all those who live in this country and in those six nations in Europe—and, I hope, in Europe as a whole.
What does it all mean? I think it means that the integration of Europe will go on—and it would have gone on without us. It is better that the integration of Europe should go on in close association with the United Kingdom. It is important that this great country, centre of a great Commonwealth, a country which has great influence in the world, should not lose the tremendous influence that it can have, and does have now in Europe, in the place where we all live. Therefore, integration in Europe will go on, slowly or quickly according to the mood and way in which the Parliamentarians of the various nations so decide.
If I may say so, Mr. Speaker, I think that this Agreement is the model of the association which we would be ready to accept in any organisations, any communities that may be set up in Europe to deal with things other than coal and steel. Here we have a model of association which we can apply rapidly. It has taken a few years to reach this stage. The Community struggled on, wondering whether Britain was with it or against it, undecided, pulled about by political considerations.
The right hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I am sure, if I say that at one time Europeans were led by many speakers to believe that the Conservative Party was all for a federal, a united, Europe and that when the Conservative Party came into office those Europeans were very disappointed. They felt that they had had a slap in the face; that a bucket of cold water had been poured over their enthusiasm. The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs knows that we have experienced that—but that is history; it is past.
Here we have a model of association in which both parties in this House concur, and I hope that if new organisations are set up in Europe we shall not waste a lot of time but say, "We have a model of association" and see how that can be applied to any other form of community

organisation that is set up inside Europe. It is an empirical approach, an approach which we in Britain understand so well, although I find it difficult, try though I do, to get my Continental colleagues to understand it. Nevertheless, for us I think that it is the right approach, the approach we understand and in which we believe, I think it is the practical approach—the approach that will bring results.
In saying that we approve the Government's Motion, I say so not because of what we have at present but rather because of the Europe which we can see arising from this great and bold experiment of the Community. In those six countries there are 160 million consumers. By association, we shall add another 50 million to that number. There will be 210 million people who have begun to be slowly bound together. That is a huge market. What an opportunity for developing and expanding the economy of those 210 million people, for raising their standard of life, for increasing their purchasing power and for guaranteeing, during all our lives, full employment for those people.
This can be likened to planting an acorn from which grows the mighty oak. That tree will thrust its roots in the ground. It will grow ever bigger and its branches will begin to overshadow more and more of the soil in which it is planted. When we look back upon this modest scene in this House today, I believe that we shall be proud that we played our part in planting the tiny acorn.

4.29 p.m.

Mr. Clement Davies: I am very glad that this Motion has been brought before the House by the Minister of Housing and Local Government, for not only was he responsible for negotiating, concluding and signing this Agreement, but, as he rightly reminded the House, he played an important part in a very strenuous and able effort to bring about a closer relationship among the countries of Europe and between Europe and ourselves.
I well remember the date upon which M. Schuman announced his plan to the world. It occurred on a day when the Foreign Secretaries of many of the European countries were here, together with Mr. Dean Acheson, who was over here from America at the invitation of our own


Foreign Secretary. I well remember the impact which M. Schuman's offer had upon us all at that time. We can certainly claim, even today, all these years afterwards, that it was the greatest step towards peace in Europe ever taken. What is more, it was the most generous step which could be taken and it could be initiated only by France, which had suffered so much in the three tremendous wars of 1870, 1914 and 1939.
We do not always remember what were the causes underlying the war of 1870, which probably led to the events which have happened in our generation. One of the underlying causes was the desire of Germany for access once again to the iron and coal fields of Alsace-Lorraine. A new discovery had just been made by a great scientist in this country which made it possible to use the very low grade iron ore in those fields for purposes for which it had been thought previously it was of no use. That had stirred the desires and ambitions of Germany. No wonder that every effort was being made at that time to cause disagreement between those two countries.
Then, for the first time, there came that amazing offer from France—an offer that the very matter which had been in dispute between them, the territory where the iron ore and the coal was to be found, should be placed under a joint control. In that way they would abolish once and for all the causes which had brought about differences between them—differences ultimately leading to war.
That being so, one can well understand the bitter disappointment at the attitude taken by what was then His Majesty's Government. In turning down the whole offer flat, they not only said, "We will not go in with you," but they said, "We will not even sit round the table and discuss this matter with you." That was their attitude, although this was the finest step towards peace in the world which had been made.
Holland, who had nothing to offer in coal or steel or any great works, said "We do not know what our position can be under this new offer, but we would like to sit around the table with the other countries, to discuss the position and to see whether we can help in some way. It may be that then we shall be able to come in."
Not only in the House but also privately one made every possible effort to persuade the then Prime Minister to change his mind at least to the extent of following the line taken by Holland. In fact, isolation was the attitude adopted by the then Government, and the offer was turned down.
I listened, as the House listened, with admiration to the speech by the right hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens). It was factual, eloquent and most persuasive, and he pointed out the tremendous advantages which arise not only to the six countries in Europe but, indeed, to the whole world from the co-operation of the peoples of those six countries in the production of coal and steel. As he rightly said, there is the advantage of the abolition of cartels, which will come about, the assistance which is given to one another technically, even the exchange of labour, which is a great difficulty in this country. I was not surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman speak in such eloquent terms, because the call from his side of the House used to be "Workers of the world unite." I do not know what has happened to that call nowadays. Even a colour bar is set up.

Mr. Jack Jones: Not in the steel industry.

Mr. Davies: I am glad to hear that, but it is set up in certain other industries.

Mr. Jones: The union responsible for bringing workers from other countries to this country is now busily engaged in bringing labour from Italy.

Mr. Davies: I am delighted to hear that because the story which I have heard from other industries, like the coal industry, is rather different. There was a time when it was not necessary for invitations to be sent, and I should like to see that state of affairs again. As the right hon. Gentleman said, how wonderful it will be when there is a free exchange between one country and another so that there is not unemployment in one country and scarcity of labour in another, too much prosperity in one country and lack of decent conditions in another.
All that might come about as a result of this Agreement—which, in those days, was rejected. I was glad to hear the right hon. Member for Blyth, who, we are pleased to note, is having an increasing influence in his own party, speak


so openly and so well about this matter. I hope he will continue along those lines.
May I also join with the right hon. Gentleman in paying the highest possible tribute to M. Jean Monnet, who, not only since the war but also during the war, did work which can never properly be assessed on behalf of the free nations, and particularly on behalf of his beloved France and of this country—work which he has continued since in this broader scheme of his for bringing peoples together, for breaking down these barriers and for removing causes of jealousy and enmity.
I welcome the Agreement as far as it goes. The Minister rightly described it as a very modest step. It is only a modest step, but it is a good thing to know that these great industries in this country will be in close consultation with the High Authority on all these matters which have been fully explained by the right hon. Gentleman.
The step is so modest that I think all the Minister has done so far is to touch the water with his toes. I wish he would go a little further. One day he may swim in that pool which will bring greater prosperity not only to the workers but to the consumers—and how right the right hon. Member for Blyth was to mention the consumers, who matter most. As long as they are satisfied, I am sure that all will go well. Like the right hon. Member for Blyth, I welcome the Agreement. I only hope that it is the first step, to be followed by a much bigger step very soon.

4.40 p.m.

Mr. Aubrey Jones: It will be within the knowledge of the House that the Agreement we are talking about today affects an industry with which I happen to be connected. The Agreement raises issues which far transcend any particular industry. It raises far greater issues of economic and foreign policy. Any views I may express, therefore, do not reflect those of any body with which I happen to be associated; they are my own and are formed in the light of those much wider considerations.
Both opening speakers in the debate, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government and the right hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens), repudiated the principle of supranationalism. I was not sure about the right hon. and

learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies), but I think I can take it as axiomatic that the House rejects the supranational principle. That being so, as a country we cannot become a full member of what is the embryo of a European federal union.
To what extent can we go in association with such a union? It ought to be one of the purposes of this debate today to try to answer that question, although I think that so far no one has attempted to answer it. I confess that in approaching the question I find myself in difficulty. The House will remember that in 1952 we agreed to enter into an "intimate and enduring association" with the Community. That may mean much or it may mean little.
When I look at the Agreement which is before us, I am also constrained to the view that it may mean something very limited and it may, on the other hand, mean very much. As I see it, the crucial Article in the Agreement is Article 8, in which we pledge ourselves to certain talks with a view to the "reduction or elimination" of restrictions on exports and imports. The operative word, I suggest, is "elimination." I put it to the House that if we advance to the elimination of all restrictions on trade, in effect we become very largely a full member of the Community.
I am not a Free Trader, because I do not consider Free Trade to be possible except over an area which, in fact, is a political unit. That is why the great Free Trade idea of the nineteenth century broke down; the world is not a political unit. That is why Lord Beaverbrook's ideal of Empire Free Trade never came to pass, because the Empire is not a political unit. If we were to agree to the complete elimination of all restrictions on trade with the Community, I think that at the end of the day we would have to advance to a political identity, to a political union, with the Continent.
I will give one or two instances of what I have in mind. My right hon. Friend mentioned the tariff on steel. That tariff was introduced in the 'thirties partly because the steel industry was threatened with extinction. It was an industry of importance from the point of view of national security. A tariff on steel for the purposes of national security may one day again become necessary—I do


not know—but were we to concede the permanent elimination of any tariff on steel we should be unable to do what we thought necessary on the grounds of national security.
I take another instance. There exist at the moment restrictions on the exports from this country of coal and steel, because both commodities happen to be scarce. Were we to allow their free export that free export would be prejudicial to full employment. If, therefore, we are to maintain full employment it seems to me that some restrictions must necessarily remain. If we regard ourselves as one political unit with the Continent, the issue of full employment may not matter so much, but so long as we are not one political union I do not think we can prejudice full employment.
I take another instance. In this country we have certain pricing policies for coal and steel framed in the light of domestic considerations. In the Community there are different policies. If we have complete freedom of trade between the two bodies we must at the end of the day arrive at the same pricing policies and we would change our present policies in this country not because we thought it desirable in itself to change them, not because there was any merit in the change itself, but for the sake of keeping in line with the Continent. That would be all right if we were one political unit with the Continent, but as we are not the matter is different.
I do not see that we can proceed to the complete elimination of restriction on exports and imports. What we can do, most certainly, is to reduce barriers. The tariff on steel grew up in the 'thirties and could certainly be reviewed in the different conditions of today. Most certainly, also, we can lay down and enforce a code of good behaviour for commercial policy. [HON. MEMBERS: "We?"] I am using the word "we" in the sense—and I hope I am not being presumptuous—of identifying myself with the country. We can certainly exchange information with regard to investment, and that exchange can be useful.
As for exchange of information on other matters, I have greater doubts. In other words, I see this Council of Association as doing in the limited and special fields of coal and steel what O.E.E.C. does

generally for the entire economy of Europe. Were the Community one day to abandon its federal aspect and its supranational ambition, I hope it would not develop into just a club of the industries concerned, but that it would develop under the auspices of O.E.E.C.
I am sceptical whether the Community will ever really realise its supranational intentions. The right hon. Member for Blyth mentioned certain difficulties. It is the easiest thing in the world formally to throw down trade barriers and say that trade is now free. Having done that, the High Authority has then to proceed much farther—it has to weld the six industries into one, with proper division of labour between them, comparable social payments and a comparable fiscal burden—butonce it attempts to do that it runs into a whole barrage of national resistances. The functional method of approaching federation was designed to avoid those difficulties, but at the end of the day I doubt whether it can avoid them; inevitably, it comes up against them.
For the time being, however, the community is a supranational institution. And though we do not accept its supranational character, it is most important that we should have good relations with it. In order that there should be good relations I offer three precepts. The first is that we should be clear and unambiguous. Please do not let us promise something that, in the end, we cannot fulfil, or give the impression that we shall do something which, at the end of the day, we cannot do.
Secondly, do not let us do anything on our part to whittle down the supranational concept. Do not let us give the impression of entering this body in the hope one day of moulding and shaping it into a form acceptable to ourselves. That has happened in the past; people in this country have uttered sentiments in that direction and I cannot help regretting the legacy of resentment and ill-feeling which, in consequence, has been left behind.
Lastly, although, as a country, we do not accept the supranational principle, I hope that, none the less, we shall fully recognise the High Authority for what it is, a supranational institution. It is not just a trading body; it is not comparable with the Coal Board or the Steel Board. It is something much bigger. It is a


supra-Government provisionally holding office pending the due appointment of the first European Federal Government.
In that respect, I should like to respond to the question put to us by my right hon. Friend, whether we should grant diplomatic immunity to a delegation from a community of this kind. I say that most certainly we should. It is not comparable to any other international organisation. Other organisations recognise national independence; this does not. It pretends to be a Government and, though we do not accept it, at least let us accord it full respect. In my view, it would be an act of grossest discourtesy to do otherwise. My precept for good relations is that, despite non-acceptance of supranationalism, there should be clarity as far as our intentions are concerned, there should be non-hindrance and, above all, respect.

4.50 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Mitchison: I am sure that no one in the House will want to waste time by arguing about what did and did not happen when the Schuman Plan was first dealt with here. I have, however, been verifying the matter, and there is no doubt whatever that my right hon. Friend's recollection was perfectly right and that the reason the Government of the day took no part in the discussions that finally resulted in the Agreement was that the French Government, who had proposed those discussions, made the supranational status of the Authority and the acceptance of that supranational status by any State taking part in the discussions an absolute condition from which they would not depart.
If any hon. Member is doubtful about the matter—I am not going to quote it—if he looks at Volume 476 of HANSARD and the statement of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition—the Prime Minister, as he was then—beginning at column 35, he will find that that is absolutely clear. I am afraid that on that matter the recollection of the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies), the leader of the Liberal Party, is somewhat incorrect if he thinks otherwise.

Mr. C. Davies: I well remember the statement made by the Leader of the Opposition, but my recollection also is that an approach was made by Holland without giving that undertaking and that

we asked that a similar approach might be made by this Government.

Mr. Mitchison: It was made perfectly clear to us—it was clear in the White Paper and in the debate—that unless we would accept beforehand a supranational authority, we were not to take part in the discussions. The Dutch were not in the same position and they are now one of the States who are parties to the Authority, which is, as the hon. Member for Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones) has so clearly explained, a supranational authority. But I do not want to waste time on that.
The White Paper sets out an Agreement which, I believe, everyone in the House will welcome. Hon. Members will welcome it for two reasons. First, because it is practical evidence of that belief in the possibilities of European unity which all parties in this House have had for some time. Secondly, the House will welcome it because it does not go too far. It is simply an agreement for consultation, for discussion and for doing what may be agreed out with the Agreement as a result of that consultation and discussion.
I should like to associate myself with what has been said in praise of M. Monnet. It requires a man of ability and vision to get a great project of this sort started. It requires a man of singular integrity, having got it started, having found what must be an exciting find—a very interesting job indeed, and something of the highest importance for the ideas which he has in view—voluntarily to leave it because he thinks it right to do something else connected with the same ideas elsewhere. I take off my hat to a man who has the vision to start a thing like this and the courage to leave it because he thinks that that is the right thing to do at the moment.
M. Monnet said, when I was talking to him about this—and I entirely agree: "The British work this way. You cannot bind them much to start with. If it works, they will come closer. If it does not work, they will leave it at that." That is perfectly true. It is rather interesting to see that before the Agreement was made, the Iron and Steel Federation, from a very different point of view, had said much the same thing. It had said, in effect, "We do not like codes in this country"—nor do we. "We prefer to


see how the thing works and to bind ourselves as little as possible to the letter of the law, hoping that the spirit will be better than the letter." That is what is happening here.
I want to take up only a short time to point to one or two of the things that struck me very much in looking at the way in which the Agreement and the High Authority were actually working. First, like every other visitor there, I was really impressed with the quality and the public spirit of the high officials and others who were working it. One can judge of an enterprise to some extent in that way and can say of two things, which both appear promising on paper, that one is far more promising than the other because of the spirit of those who are operating it. They have shown themselves to be capable and to be idealists by what they have done so far; for, surely, they have had a very short time.
If I come to one or two of the difficulties that those officials have met, it is, therefore, in no carping spirit but is in recognition that very much has been done in a short time. They found, of course, the usual commercial and industrial difficulties that one would expect in a highly important industry of this kind over Europe. One of the essentials of the Agreement and of the organisation that has been set up was that price lists should be published and should be strictly kept to, and steps were taken to enforce this; and limits within which this could, and should, be enforced, after discussion—in fact, after an actual decision on the subject—were arrived at.
Then, the High Authority made a spot check and looked at 48 firms. Thirty-five of them, it was quite plain, were guilty of more or less serious irregularities. One does not want to take that as a sign of failure—I do not think it is that; but it does illustrate the practical difficulty of putting this sort of thing into effect.
Next, I take another case. The High Authority came to deal with cartels and concentrations, which are something which is not capable of exact definition. Even if one does define it, one has still to look at the spirit of the matter and see whether it is a mischievous cartel or concentration or merely one that might be described by those unfortunate words but

which really does no harm to anyone. At the start, we had a pretty definite prejudice against these things and, I confess, some little doubt as to what was going on, For that reason alone, I am glad that we are consulting and discussing matters with the High Authority. We want more light on all this.
What has disturbed me and has disturbed others also is what is happening with regard to the steel and coal interests in the Ruhr. Certain concentrations, big groups in the Ruhr, which were deprived of their coal, or the greater part of it, under Allied measures of deconcentration are now getting it back. There were, I believe, four medium concerns, one of which—the Mannesmann concern—I take as an instance. It had its coal taken away from it. It has now got it back, and has done so with the sanction of the High Authority. Of the other three concerns, two have also got back their coal. The figures are fairly large, although not large in proportion to the total amount of Western European or even West German coal production; nevertheless, they are still substantial quantities. In one case it is six million tons of coal a year, three million in another case and four million in another. The fourth of the medium concerns apparently expects to get it.
I would simply say that that kind of thing obviously needs watching, and it needs watching from the point of view of our national interests and from a much wider point of view. The object of the Schuman Plan, the object of this Agreement, is, amongst other things, to secure peace within Western Europe, and peace in the widest and broadest sense imaginable. It is to prevent the possibility of economic struggles again leading to war, as they often have in the past, particularly in the case of Germany; and if that purpose is to be effected, then surely sooner or later we shall have to look into the question of this concentration of power in single concerns in Germany, particularly if those single concerns remain largely under the control of individual German groups, often of German families with various unfortunate names which we all in this House remember.
I mention these two things not in derogation in any way of what the High Authority is doing but as an indication of the immensity of the task it has to


face, and, I believe, some indication of the extreme importance of it. I turn from two matters where it seems to me there are risks, risks which may be broadly put into the very simple phrase, keeping the steel barons in order—something which we have occasionally found a little difficult in this country, and which has been obviously more difficult in Germany in the past. I turn from that to one or two points where, I think, most remarkable successes have already been achieved.
One of these is in the matter of investment. I do not know how far people in this country realise how extremely difficult it is to get large-scale projects financed abroad in any way that we should regard as satisfactory. Arrangements are different in different countries. I am talking of the machinery. The variations of interest at the same time between one country in Western Europe and another are quite startling. The machinery, except, I think, in the Netherlands, is pretty inefficient, and there appears to be no adequate arrangement at all for the kind of long-term financing that, for good or for ill, we are accustomed to in this country.
This problem has been tackled by the High Authority, and tackled with very considerable success. It is already succeeding in reducing the interest in various countries, for instance, from round about 9½ per cent., a high figure, in Western Germany during the period of the last Report, to 7 per cent., still a high figure. It is arranging gradually a certain internationalisation within Western Europe of these arrangements, and I would say that what it is doing in this way is contributing to cheaper steel. It is the exact opposite of what is happening in this country, where there is a higher rate of interest charged to the steel industry now, because it has been denationalised, than there used to be when it was public property. It is, accordingly, a step forward, and an advance where an advance was much needed.
The second thing it is doing that I would select for mention is very closely connected with that. As part of its arrangements in connection with financing, it has raised 100 million dollars in America, and that 100 million dollars is to be lent out to the particular concerns under the double security of what pledges and charges and the like can be given by

the borrowing firms and the guarantee fund of the High Authority itself, which is raised by a levy over the industry. From the point of view of the lender, it is a pretty good security, I think.
That money is to be applied in financing various projects. I am not going into them. They are connected on the whole with the coal industry rather than with the steel industry. However, I would say this about these arrangements, that they are excellent from this point of view, that that finance is given only as to about a quarter of the total cost of the project; the remainder has to be found elsewhere, and, of course, if part of it can be lent at a comparatively low rate out of this fund, that not only reduces the total rate of interest chargeable on the industry, but tends to bring down the rate demanded by bankers and others for the rest of the money.
A quarter of that 100 million dollars is to be devoted to housing, and the High Authority, I am not surprised to see, is wiser in this matter than some industrialists in this country. It is taking a very firm line about not having any tied houses. Perhaps when the discussions take place they will not be entirely one sided, and we in this country shall be sensible enough to learn from what they are doing abroad about the practical disadvantages of tied houses—not only our coal, but our iron and steel concerns, too. Some day or another, as a result of this Agreement and what flows from it, we may get even the tied houses in Corby untied. That is, perhaps, a rather parochial point compared with the things we are considering now, but the principle is there all the same, and it is quite right. What the High Authority is doing in housing is to use it as part of the means of facilitating the movements of workers which are almost inevitable in any reorganisation of the steel industry of Western Europe, much of which is sadly out of date.
It is in connection with that that it is studying the question of pay, and it is looking at pay very properly. It has already got out the most valuable statistics of the money received, not only in the wage packets but in social security benefits and so on, by the workers in different countries in Western Europe. It is going one further and proposes to apply those figures to ascertain the real


wages; that is to say, by a comparison of budgets and expenditure to find out what the standard of living really is in those countries; and it is accepting what it ought to accept under the Agreement, a general responsibility not only for preventing decreases in wages but also, in the terms of the preamble, for improving the standards of living.
I say, with confidence, that if we consider how this is working at the present, we find two things. First of all, that the difficulties are major difficulties. They are, I think, the difficulties of any shift of power, a shift in this case from individual, powerful capitalist concerns to this supranational authority. It is finding all those difficulties, it is facing up to them, and it is making considerable progress indeed. On the other hand, we find that it is taking a wide view of its functions. It is looking at the social effects of what it is doing. It is trying not only to promote peace in the long run by making war impossible, but the foundations of peace in a common life and in common interests and in common work over the area of all the countries that are members of this High Authority.
I am thoroughly glad, therefore, that this Agreement has been put before us for approval today. I feel sure that nothing that we say here will be taken by those who are concerned with the High Authority as anything but an appreciation of their difficulties, on the one hand, and the spirit and success with which they are meeting them, on the other.

5.10 p.m.

Major H. Legge-Bourke: This debate seems to have produced one non sequitur after another. I am absolutely at one with the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison), and indeed with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government and the right hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens), in wanting to do anything which is likely to strengthen Europe in the cause of peace and to assist in a united effort. When one expresses such a view, one must be quite sure that anything which is presented before us in this House, such as the White Paper we are now considering, represents the best way in which that objective can be achieved.
The right hon. Member for Blyth recalled the occasion when the Schuman

Plan was introduced and the House first expressed its opinion upon it. I remember that occasion very well, because five of my colleagues and myself felt unable to support the official Opposition view, for the reason that we did not like the supranational flavour about it. There has been a dispute since then between the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) and the right hon. Member for Blyth as to exactly why the Government of that day, now the Opposition, took the line which they did. I can only speak for the line that I took, which was that we ought not to do anything which was likely to encourage supranational bodies in Europe.
I still adhere to that view, because I believe that the terrible danger of such bodies is that if they are tested before they are put into full operation the whole organisation crumbles and one has greater weakness and chaos than prevailed before the whole organisation was started. I do not believe that the countries of Europe are capable of producing a lasting supranational authority, although I am at one with the aim which led to the creation of the Authority, that is, in order to strengthen Europe and to prevent the outbreak of a third world war.
That aim is important, but on examination of the Agreement I find it a little difficult to ally some of its terms with what my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government said when he opened the debate. My right hon. Friend gave a categorical assurance that Britain would retain her complete freedom in economic policy and he maintained that the Agreement achieved that freedom. I ask the House to examine the Agreement much more closely than anybody who has spoken in the debate appears to have done.
Article 4 (3) of the Agreement states:
The proceedings and papers of the Council of Association shall not be made public except in so far as the Council of Association may agree otherwise.
I am not so much worried about the proceedings as about the papers. What will the papers be about? I presume that papers will be issued about the matters which are mentioned in Article 6. They will be concerned with:
… matters of common interest concerning coal and steel …


which will include,
(a) Conditions of trade in coal and steel between the Community and the United Kingdom;
Are we being told seriously today that we are now to prevent Her Majesty's Government, if they so wish, from publishing anything under that heading unless it has been approved by the Council of Association? That is how I read Articles 4 and 6.
I grant that there are four nominees of the United Kingdom on the Council and four members from other countries, but what will occur if the majority happens to go the other way? One can well see it happening. The right hon. Member for Blyth said something which was perfectly true of these organisations. He said that some of the other member countries now in the Coal and Steel Community had virtually lost their nationality altogether. There is a disease which has developed more since the war than it ever did before. I can only describe it as "delegationitis." It has a most destroying effect upon a person's remembrance of what he was sent to do originally. The delegation is apt to become more important than those who delegated it, and that is what might happen in this Council of Association.
It happens in this country in some organisations which have great power. Anybody who is sent by Her Majesty's Government as their representative on this Council of Association ought to have the interest of the United Kingdom paramount in his mind. I do not know for how long he will be able to retain that interest. If we have to join other organisations like those set up since the war, the time during which a delegate will remain fully aware that his main purpose is to look after the United Kingdom interests will become shorter and shorter as time goes on. When one sets up a national or international bureaucracy there is a tendency to make the bureaucracy more important than the subject it was originally set up to deal with.
Other items to which the publication of papers will relate, according to Article 6 of the Agreement are:
(f) General objectives of development and main lines of investment policy;
Are we to be told that the Government cannot possibly make disclosures to the House on these subjects, and iron and

steel interests in the country cannot make statements about them in this country, because those disclosures and statements have not been approved by the Council of Association? I should not be so anxious if it were not for the fact that, since the United Nations and other international organisations have been set up, one has had instances over and over again where simply because matters are under consideration by those other bodies nothing can be said about them in the House of Commons.
If we had a referendum on this Agreement today, I believe that it would be rejected by a large majority, but that does not mean automatically that Her Majesty's Government are wrong in introducing it. The right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) spoke on another occasion of how the House of Commons has to give a lead in some matters. I believe that Governments have sometimes to do things of which the country does not always approve beforehand.
I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government and my hon. Friend the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs are deeply sincere in their belief that this Agreement will do us no possible damage, may conceivably do us some good and will help Europe in the future. I do not agree with them. I believe that the Agreement is restrictive of British sovereignty, and that we have had enough restriction of British sovereignty since the war not to agree with further restriction. I agreed with much of what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones). He made it abundantly clear that the European Coal and Steel Community has been set up with a supranational aim. There is regret amongst member States in that supranational body that the United Kingdom is not in it, but I say "Thank goodness the United Kingdom is not." It is one of the very few things upon which I can congratulate the late Government—the fact that they did not attend the meeting of the supranational authority on the terms on which they were asked to go.
I think that some people assume that because E.D.C. failed supranationalism is dead in Europe. I wish it were. I do not believe it is, and I think that what M. Mendes-France said in August last year


at the time before E.D.C. was finally rejected is very relevant to this debate. He warned his own people of the great danger if the economic consequences of E.D.C. existed and if international bureaucracy dictated to France what she should spend and how she should spend money on armaments, steel, cotton and so forth. This is part of the same plan. It is all the whittling down of national sovereignty.
Some hon. Members think that national sovereignty today is not important. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Blyth suggested that people should shed their nationalism as though it were an old overcoat. I personally believe that if a few more people in this country would think more of their own nationalism here it would be a very good thing for the world at large. It is practicably impossible, for instance, for any Member of this House to be in favour of a supranational authority and be loyal to the oath we take when coming into this House. I am only speaking for myself, and I am perfectly sure that hon. Members opposite are speaking according to the dictates of their consciences. All I am asking is that they should not expect me to support some of the things they put forward.
Why do I believe in national sovereignty and why am I against federation? It is simply for this reason, that I believe that in piping times, when there is a boom atmosphere, it is easy enough to get these agreements working. But what happens when the terms of trade change? The old French proverb "Sauve qui peut" is then apt to operate. What is going to happen if an international organisation has been set up which is going to bind us in association with other international bodies, such as we are asked to do today? In times of recession it will be necessary to break the undertaking given in the interests of one's own country. What was it in 1932 which really helped the British economy to get going again? The right to put on the tariffs which we wanted to introduce in mutual agreement with the Commonwealth.
There is a great fallacy underlying the talk about tariffs automatically restricting trade. I strongly disagree with that view. They are a director to trade, and in some cases can be a positive encouragement. If anyone doubts that, let him look at what happened between 1932 and 1939.

Article 8 tends to deny to us the right to put on tariffs if they become necessary. I do not say for a moment that they need to be increased today, but if there were a repetition of the sort of conditions of 1931, tariffs would probably be about the only thing which could save this country's economy. Here we are being asked to run the risk of having another inter national supranational body interfering with our right to do with our Common wealth——

Mr. Mitchison: The hon. and gallant Member is getting so worried that I feel very sorry for him, but if he reads this White Paper he will find that it commits this country to nothing whatever but discussion.

Major Legge-Bourke: The hon. and learned Member, I am sure, believes that, and I am absolutely certain that the Government themselves believe it. All I ask hon. Members supporting this plan and the Government to do is to read this White Paper again to see how many different interpretations could be put upon it. I have voiced some of the anxieties which arise in my mind as to some of the possible interpretations.
It is true that Article 9 says:
In fulfilling their functions, the Council of Associations shall, among other considerations"—
I like "among other considerations"—
have regard to the interests of consumers, as well as of producers, of coal and steel in the Community and the United Kingdom.
I should much prefer that instead of the phrase "and the United Kingdom" it read "or the United Kingdom or both." It looks to me as if that means that the Council of Association shall have the right to take into consideration only those things which are directed both to the Community and to the United Kingdom. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Kettering is a lawyer and ought to have detected that one himself.
We have been told that one of the arguments in favour of this Council of Association is that this Agreement will prevent cartels being set up. I think a lot of other constructions could be put upon that. There is
the special relationship between the United Kingdom and other members of the Commonwealth of Nations.


That is all very nice. All that is undertaken here is that in fulfilling its functions the Council of Association shall, among other considerations, have regard to these things.

Mr. Jack Jones: I have listened with great patience to the long-drawn-out story about the economy of Her Majesty's Government, but can the hon. and gallant Member show us one instance where Her Majesty's Government can be overruled by this supranational body?

Major Legge-Bourke: If I may say so to the hon. Gentleman, who knows the steel industry extremely well, he ought not to be so easily gulled.

Mr. Jones: I am asking the hon. and gallant Member.

Major Legge-Bourke: What I am directing my remarks to is what the Council of Association can do by way of restricting the activities of Her Majesty's Government. I am much more concerned with that aspect than I am with the question put to me by the hon. Member. How much is the Council restricted by Her Majesty's Government? I say that the more this Council of Association is restricted by Her Majesty's Government the better. What I am anxious to avoid is the Council dictating to Her Majesty's Government, and if we consider the last part of Article 4 in conjunction with Article 6, I say that there are possibilities of great restrictions there. It seems to me that this Council can prevent vital information being given to us by Her Majesty's Government, and that is something which we should not tolerate.
I apologise for keeping the House as long as I have and for striking a discordant note while everybody else is singing the praises of this Agreement. I only repeat that I am quite satisfied in my mind that those who have spoken in favour of this Agreement sincerely believe what they have said, but I say that it could be a most dangerous thing for this country and Her Majesty's Government would be well advised to tidy up the wording a good deal.
As to inserting something about diplomatic privileges, I was much impressed by the point put forward by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Blyth, that there should be some limited

form, rather than a full measure of, diplomatic privileges. I think there are too many people enjoying them. I certainly do not accept for one moment the agreement which apparently my right hon. Friend has entered into, that whatever we decide about these things should be equal between the two sides, because I say our delegation to the supranational authority represents a sovereign Government, but the people coming from that body represent an international conglomeration which has neither sovereignty nor the right of existence.

5.29 p.m.

Mr. H. Hynd: We thought this was going to be a non-controversial debate, but I notice that the two Government back-bench speakers, the hon. Member for Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones) and the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke), have both shown that they are very troubled about the Agreement. It seems to me that we on this side must defend the Government against their own supporters on this occasion.
But surely people who have any misgivings at all must agree on one thing, that many people had doubts as to how long the Coal and Steel Community would continue once it was set up. They may have wished it well, but many of them thought that this new experiment, though a courageous one, faced tremendous odds, and various people gave it different terms of existence. The Community still exists, however, and so far it has managed to meet the great difficulties with which it has been confronted. It has done better than many of its friends thought it could do when it was set up, so we ought to give it that measure of support at any rate.
I am sorry that we did not enter the organisation as a full member at the beginning. Our fears at that time were exaggerated, and I think we should have taken part in the discussions. The present measure of association is very slight; as the Minister told us this afternoon, it consists simply of the exchange of information and consultation. That is nothing to be excited about, and it does not justify any opposition to signing the Agreement.
There is one remarkable thing—this may be what has influenced the remarks of the two previous speakers opposite—


that the European Coal and Steel Community has shown the great advantage of sensible co-operation in coal and steel. It has a great advantage over the free-for-all competition in which hon. Gentlemen opposite usually believe.

Mr. Aubrey Jones: The hon. Gentleman has referred to me as opposing the Agreement. Yet I said that I was fully in agreement with co-operation, though not with federation, which is a different thing.

Mr. Hynd: If the hon. Gentleman is in favour of the Agreement, I misunderstood him and apologise, but that was the impression left on my mind by his rather pessimistic comments. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) described this as an empirical approach which he found difficult to explain to the people he met at those meetings. Of course it is difficult to explain. People cannot understand this approach which we are pleased to call empirical. It sounds a very respectable word for a rather selfish attitude. We are saying to the others, "You should unite for the benefit of Europe but we will not come in with you; we will stand on the sidelines and, in so far as we feel it will benefit us, we will consult with you and exchange information, but that is as far as we will go."
That was not the idea of the present Minister of Housing and Local Government when he and I were at the Hague Congress together, looking forward to a great future for Europe through co-operation. We felt it would be more real than that. This I believe to be a complete justification for what was known as the functional approach towards European co-operation. This is the first successful experiment, and I am delighted that it has been so successful. I would like to see it extended, and I see no reason, if in another year or two the Community continues to cope successfully with the problems of the coal and steel industries, why its activities should not be extended to, say, transport. I suggest transport because about 40 per cent. of the freight transport within the six countries concerned consists of the transport of the products of those two industries. Therefore, it would not be too big a step forward to extend the activities of the

organisation to cover West European transport.
I want to ask the Minister what he meant when he said he thought this was a framework within which he hoped for closer association between Britain and the organisation. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will explain in what direction he hopes there will be closer association, and what kind of closer association he had in mind? I found it difficult to associate those remarks with his earlier ones when he said that Britain must retain complete freedom to determine her own economic policy. We cannot have it both ways. If we are to take the isolationist position mentioned by the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely, we cannot at the same time say that we hope for closer association with the Community. That seems to be a paradox which requires clarification.
Another question is, who will represent this country on the Council of Association? We are to be entitled to nominate four people. I do not suppose that the right hon. Gentleman can give names today, but what kind of people will they be? Will they be Ministers or hon. Members of this House or civil servants? Also, will the annual report visualised in this Agreement be laid before the House for discussion? That is essential if hon. Members are to follow the activities of the Association as they should.
With those remarks, I give my full support to this Agreement so far as it goes, only regretting that we are not more closely associated with what I regard as an important body, with which it will be essential for us to associate more closely in the future if we are not to suffer economically by attempting to compete against the combined coal and steel industries of those six countries.

5.39 p.m.

Colonel C. G. Lancaster: Unfortunately, the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) is no longer in his place. I wanted to tell him that, for almost the first time in my experience, I found myself in nearly total agreement with what he said. Like that hon. and learned Member and several other hon. Gentlemen opposite, I paid a recent visit to Luxembourg and was immensely impressed with all I heard and saw there in regard to the European Coal and Steel Community. M. Monnet, in particular,


impressed me not only with his balance and wisdom but with the tone and temper which he set amongst the higher members of the High Authority and their staff. I join with my right hon. Friend in paying tribute also to our delegation there under the leadership of Sir Cecil Weir. I was impressed with their grip of the problems confronting them and with the sensible approach to their task in working in association with the Community.
Now I want to make one or two general observations in regard to this problem. At the time the Schuman Plan was first considered, I suggested that we should be wise to associate ourselves with the movement rather than to federate with it. I did so advisedly because my mind went back to the time before the 1914 war when there was growing up something of the same order, though it lacked the political concept which permeates the Community. It was not dissimiliar from what is now essentially a political as well as an economic federation.
In those days the community of interests between the Ruhr and Westphalia, the Saar and Lorraine, Belgium and Holland, was becoming a very real thing and was developing in a certain sense to be something of a threat to our own interests on the Continent. The 1914 War and subsequent events rather shattered the original conception, and what has now been set up is, I admit, in many ways a different thing. There is certainly no question of a cartel arising in the minds of those who are directing the Community. Indeed, any suggestion that there might be an element of cartel is hotly, and rightly, resented.
However, as has been pointed out, we are living at this moment in a seller's market where there is a demand all over the world for the wares which are being produced by the Community as well as by us. However, should that position be reversed and should the strain arise of over-production with the consequent unemployment and other disadvantages which go with over-production, we might find our traditional markets very much influenced by what is occurring in the Community.
Hon. Members opposite may not wish to recognise that under a free economy the efficiency in, for example, the coal world—I do not know whether the same applies to the steel world—is appreciating

on the Continent at a greater rate than it is in this country under state control. If conditions turn in the way that they may turn, with a recession, it may well be that we shall find competition in our traditional markets made more difficult for us.
To that extent, I welcome this Association because I believe that thereby, by discussion, by prior knowledge and by the advantages of consultation, we may be able to cushion the effects. Were we to stand outside the Community and have nothing to do with it, we should find ourselves in considerable difficulty if those conditions should arise. It is all to the good that we have had the wisdom to enter into this Association, and to that extent I join hon. Members on both sides of the House who welcome the Association and wish it well.

5.44 p.m.

Mr. George Chetwynd: I find myself in considerable agreement with the views expressed by the hon. and gallant Member for South Fylde (Colonel Lancaster). I was with him on the delegation about which he has spoken. Like him, I was impressed with the very high calibre of not only the members of the High Authority but also the directors of the departments, the technicians and all others concerned with this developing Community.
I have agreed to be very brief, and so I must more or less headline what I have to say. The position with most of my hon. Friends is still the same as it was when the matter was first debated, and that is that full membership of the organisation for Great Britain is quite impossible. Nothing has happened since then to convince us that we could surrender part of our sovereignty in vital industrial fields to a supranational body.
However, from what I have seen, the body in Luxembourg is not quite so supranational as some people thought at the beginning it would be. It is responsible to a high court, it is responsible in some measure to a common assembly, and it has the advantage of becoming more and more responsible to a general public opinion.
On the other hand, it is not possible for us to remain in isolation from this body. That is not a practical proposition. It is quite impossible for Great Britain to stand aloof and disinterested from what takes


place in Europe. That brings us to the form of association that we are discussing today. The policy of association with the Community has been the consistent aim of the British Labour Party. Sir Stafford Cripps, in his speech when we debated the Schuman Plan, made it quite clear that we were in favour of an association with whatever form came out of the discussions.
The time has come, and the Government have faced this, when we must get down to establishing a formal relationship with the Community. It is a reality. In spite of what the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) thinks, it is now well established in Western Europe, and I believe it is here to stay. It covers an area of about 449,000 square miles, and in 1954 it had a record output of 43,800,000 tons of steel, and it has had a post-war peak output of 241,600,000 tons of coal. Thus, it is something of which we must take account; we cannot just ignore it and pretend that it does not exist.
By its efforts over the last two or three years the Community has brought about a common market in all the fields with which it is concerned. It has brought about a transfer of workers. It has brought about the re-equipping and integration of steelworks, the modernisation of coalmines, and so on, with the general result that the artificial pattern of trade which previously existed is slowly but surely being removed and coal and steel are beginning now to flow in increasing quantities along the natural routes to the right places at the right time.
For political reasons alone, to enable the Government to show that we are interested in trying to build up a greater unity in Western Europe, it is to our advantage to be associated with the Community. I believe that for economic reasons as well and for the plain self-interest of this country, we have everything to gain by this form of association.
It is not possible to make a dramatic gesture by, for instance, stationing about four divisions of troops in Europe for fifty years to show that we intend to be considered as interested in Western Europe. We cannot move a steelworks or a coalmine into Western Europe and say, "We will share this with you all," but the least

we can do is to say that we will cooperate and discuss all the matters which are laid down in the Agreement with a view to avoiding the worst horrors which affected us with the growth of cartels during the inter-war years. If we can prevent that sort of development, that alone will make association well worth while for us.
If we can combine for the purpose of increasing the consumption of steel throughout Europe and the world, that will, in turn, bring immeasurable benefits to the workers in the steel and coal industries at home. There are difficulties, of course, and I took the opportunity, in a debate at Strasbourg some years ago, to point these out to M. Monnet. It is true that British public opinion is not fully aroused to what it involves. There is no climate of opinion in this country for participation or association. I doubt if one in a hundred in my constituency could tell me what E.C.S.C. means; many would probably think it a football club.
Nevertheless, this does not mean that we have to leave the Community alone. It is up to us to inform public opinion. I should like to know what steps the Government propose to take to publicise the activities of the organisation, not only by an annual report to the House, which may be lost among so many other things, but by daily contact with opinion in this country.
It is also true that the steel industry is not very enthusiastic about the Agreement. It would rather there were a commercial association direct between the firms in this country and the firms on the Continent. I think that would be a disaster, or it could be a disaster, and I would much rather have a Government-to-Government approach on the matter, subject, in the last resort, to the will of Parliament.
Some of our people thought at one stage that the High Authority could take actions to close coalmines or steelworks in this country. I raised the question with M. Monnet and, of course, he said that this was completely baseless and a chimera. Therefore, I do not think we need have any fears on that ground. I should like to know what the Government will do to take the initiative in this matter and to carry along with them the British coal and steel industries.
There is more than one way of killing a pig. One can strangle it at birth—which is perhaps what some people would have preferred in this case—or one may kill it by slow starvation over a long period. I do not wish to see this association starved. I wish to see fruitful cooperation. I should like to see not only initiative from Luxembourg but efforts from this country to make the association worth while.
My general conclusion is that this Agreement may mean a lot, or it may mean nothing at all. It might die through lack of interest. But if we start in a limited fashion with discussions about the future of tariffs, investment, market trends and social questions, the Council could do useful work. It could lower obstacles to trade. It could co-ordinate development on long-term plans. I am convinced that this offers no threat of unemployment to our people and that it is something which we can support to the full.
We have provision for discussions at Ministerial level, but I wish to see discussions and joint action at Parliamentary level. I hope that the Minister will tell us—because it meets with some support from the Common Assembly—that the High Authority has means of associating hon. Members of this House with the Common Assembly when matters of general interest are under discussion. I hope we can do that, even though it means that the Members of this House on the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe are, at the same time, the members sitting in the Common Assembly. I am sure that most hon. Members on this side of the House wish that this association, which is now only a framework, will develop into a live permanent organisation.

5.52 p.m.

Mr. Robson Brown: I wish to associate myself with the speeches of approbation which we have heard this afternoon and to say that the Minister and the Government have moved in the way we would wish and so far as we could have wished them to do. The empirical approach is the good English approach, the wise approach and, in the long run, the most sensible approach.
I wish to speak from the point of view of steel production and to say that on talking to the men in the industry, and not the management of the industry, I

have found a certain uneasiness about the plan and its effect upon their future employment. I have assured them that against the present background and proposals, and in the commitments which we have made, there is no danger in that respect; but there is a very grave danger that we are displaying a too easy optimism about the future of these proposals.
I welcome the vision of the future outlined by the right hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens). I hope he is right, but we must be very level-headed in these matters. It may well be that we are at the peak of present expansion of trade. I hope not, but it may well be so. If that be the case, I believe that the Community and Great Britain might be likened to a three-wheel cart, unless the United States is included in some way or other. I cannot visualise a community, particularly a steel community, working successfully in periods of serious fluctuations of trade unless it includes the United States. I feel, therefore, that we should look upon this plan as the preliminary to an international understanding.
I believe that here I am supported by figures of great import. In 1953, the world production of steel reached a record total of 230 million tons. That represented an increase in one year alone of 22 million tons, which is more than the total output of Great Britain in one year and an increase of 11 per cent. over the previous year. What is more important, it represents twice the tonnage of 1937–38.
Why do I give these figures? Because there is another figure which is of great importance. In 1954, output dropped from 230 million tons to about 219 million tons. The major part of that drop was in the United States. If the United States ever came into the markets of the world and took orders regardless of cost, the steel economy of Europe and of this country would suffer seriously. It is well for us to consider these matters in good time before an adverse change in trade takes place and to try to bring in the United States with us.
It is projected that in the next five years the world production of steel will reach the stupendous total of 278 million tons, an increase of over 20 per cent. I think it only natural that workers in the industry in this country should ask, "How are we to dispose of that over the


world?" The House and the country should note that we depend on the export of steel. A remarkable thing is that, after taking into account the imports of steel, the exports of British steel in the raw last year was only 2,375,000 tons. But steel exported in the form of finished goods amounts to over 4 million tons a year. Our finishing trades are selling our steel for us.
A remarkable fact is that out of that 4 million tons no less than 27 per cent. went to Europe and the United States, with the greater part in Europe. One does not need to think very long before realising the impact of that figure if we or any country in Europe should meet with a recession in trade. The effect, naturally, would be to take away that 27 per cent. from us by European manufacturers.
The intention and purpose of the Iron and Steel Community is to bring down the cost of steel in Europe wherever possible. It is realised that steel is the raw material of the modern age, and if the price of European steel be low their competitive position in other trades in which steel is used would be that much better. It is well that we in this country should bear these figures in mind and not indulge in over-optimistic feelings about the future. It must surely be our purpose to make good steel and cheap steel, but also to work to unite the steel nations of the world in an international steel community.

5.57 p.m.

Mr. Jack Jones: I welcome the oportunity of saying a few words about this Agreement. To put it briefly, it means to me that Her Majesty's Tory Government have put into print what His late Majesty's Labour Government put into words. It is an expression of good will towards this European organisation, which is as it should be.
We opposed a supranational set-up and I would still oppose anything of the sort. The hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) and other hon. Members have said that when they went to Luxembourg they were astonished to find experienced and intelligent people there. Wherever they go they will find that steel workers or coal workers are among the best people, because they have

been brought up to accept responsibility. Men in the steel and coal industries are accustomed to dealing with the hard facts of a situation.
M. Monnet, for whom I have a great personal regard, would like to see us "go the whole hog" in this matter, but there are many reasons why we cannot. No Government, whether Socialist, Liberal, Coalition or Tory, could enter into an agreement to give other nations the right to dictate wage rates, conditions or prices in this country without the good will of the mining community and the steel workers. They would be heading for disaster if they did. That is why we cannot agree to such a course.
At the same time, there is no reason why this or any other British Government should not take part in a policy of mutual understanding and good will with the European countries. There are many things which may be done. Hon. Members have mentioned some and I could mention others. We might show other countries how we conduct our trade union business and explain what are really the functions of management and trade unions in this country. Questions such as the integration of scientific knowledge can be gone into. I know that the Community has already done some good work, including that of reducing freight charges and bringing to an end the practice whereby a truck was conveyed full one way and was brought back empty.
The Community has brought down prices, and that is a good thing. It will keep us very much on the qui vive to see that our prices compete with those of other countries. If there is one thing which we must produce it is an unlimited supply of high quality steel at the cheapest possible price. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) mentioned that the wrong way of going about the matter is by giving increased dividends, but that is a subject for another debate. Continental firms have been able to obtain capital at controlled rates of interest, which is another way of doing good work within the industry.
I think I can speak on behalf of one of the major industries concerned—the steel industry—and say that it welcomes the fact that the policy which the country wants to express has now been put in writing. This should encourage our


friends on the Continent to do all that is possible, each with the other, to bring about a situation which will tend towards peace in the world.

6.1 p.m.

Mr. Peter Roberts: It is a pity that the end of this debate has been rushed. I should have thought that the Government could have given more time to this very important subject. I very much doubt whether many hon. Members will be here at ten o'clock, when we finish discussing the second part of tonight's business. I should have preferred to see this debate continued. At any rate, it seems as though Sheffield will have the last word from the back benches. That is as it should be, because Sheffield is very much interested in this subject.
I had an interesting speech to deliver to the House but I shall not now do so, largely owing to the shortage of time. I shall content myself by asking one question of my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. This question has not yet been raised, and it was certainly not mentioned by my right hon. Friend in his opening speech. What form of Parliamentary control shall we have over the deliberations of this Association? Shall we be able to ask Questions about it? If so, of whom are we to ask Questions? I imagine that it will not be the Minister of Housing and Local Government.
I feel that the Association will have more importance in relation to the general co-ordination of production of steel in Western Europe during the next 10 years than anything has had in the last 15 years. If this Agreement works, as it may well do, questions arise about the situation of steel works; what type they shall be; in what countries they are to be placed, and how they are to work in with the defence programme. Those are vitally important questions. We should be told now how it is proposed that Parliamentary control shall be exercised in this matter.
I hope that my right hon. Friend will deal specifically with this point. It is vitally important that people should be encouraged to take an interest in the matter. It would have helped if we had had a longer debate, but if my right hon. Friend will answer my question we shall be better able to see how the system is likely to work out in the future.

6.4 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Mulley: It is very appropriate that the two last back-bench speeches in this debate should be given by hon. Members representing Sheffield constituencies. I find myself in the most unusual position of agreeing with everything that the hon. Member for Heeley (Mr. P. Roberts) has said. I agree that it would have been better if this debate could have gone on a little longer. I also agree about the importance of more information being made available about this Association, and the necessity for Parliamentary responsibility in the matter.
I should have liked to go into the very interesting point made by the hon. Member for Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones), concerning the position of organisations which exhibit supranational tendencies. Time does not permit me to go fully into that aspect of the matter, but I would venture the observation that we should make our position abundantly clear to our friends on the Continent. At any time now somebody may suggest that a similar body should be set up for some other industry, and it would avoid the embarrassment of an invitation that we could not accept if it were made clear that the only terms upon which we could consider attending a conference dealing with our association with the Continent would be that there should not be any pre-condition of a supranational principle.
I do not want to become involved in the arguments which we had in the House and elsewhere two or three years ago, but it is quite clear that, whatever might have been the outcome of that conference, it would have been a mistake if we had gone, because if it had then failed we should have had the responsibility of killing the idea. We are in a very different position from Holland. It is for the Government to make it quite clear that we are anxious to co-operate with Europe, but if they want to talk to us about the matter they should not ask us to accept the principle of organisation in advance.
I welcome this Association for two reasons. First, it is the least that we can do to assist the economic development of Europe and, secondly, it is in our self-interest. I need not enlarge upon the reasons for that; they have been explained by many hon. Members. It is


abundantly clear that a Community with an annual steel production of 43 million tons and an annual coal production of 241 million tons on our doorstep is something about which we have to think.
I hope that the Association will develop into something valuable and worth while, but also that no one will take the view that because a document has been signed and sealed we have a close association with the Community. All that the Agreement does is to lay down the framework within which a close association can be developed. I hope that the responsible Minister will take the initiative and not leave all the running of the machine to the members of the High Authority in Luxembourg. There is no reason why some of the items mentioned in Article 6 should not be dealt with at once. I certainly think that we should consider discussions which might lead to a reduction in restrictions upon trade, import and export duties, and so on.
I believe that our steel industry is able to face any competition that may be forthcoming, both as to quality and price. It will be a very sad day for us if we feel that we have to protect the industry because we cannot take our place in the world market. Although the ownership of the industry is an issue between the two sides of the House, I think it is agreed that it needs to be supervised by the Iron and Steel Board. I believe that a logical extension of that principle is provided by the facilities which are laid down in the Agreement with the European Coal and Steel Community.
I have talked mainly about steel because that is my constituency interest and also because it is in its dealings with steel that the Association will impinge to the greatest extent upon our economy. As far as coal is concerned, I do not believe that it will have quite the same effect.
I wish to join with other hon. Members in paying a tribute to M. Monnet. There is no doubt that it was his inspiration which caused the Community to be set up, and I believe that he has been largely responsible for the great practical success which it has achieved. From a short visit to Luxembourg, I am satisfied that the organisation is very successful, and is not, as I thought at one time, a remote and rigid Authority. It is approaching its work on a very practical

basis. It may be, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. Jack Jones) said, that it is because those responsible are steel and coal people, but I also think it is due to the fact that when people get down to doing a job, they often forget some of the theories on which the organisation was based.
Although the High Authority has supranational powers, it consults both the trade unions and the national Governments concerned at every stage, and I believe that it is because of these things that it has succeeded. Whether or not it becomes a blueprint for a federal Europe, I am sure that the European Coal and Steel Community is here to stay, and that, as a consequence of its operations, there will be an increase both in the production and quality of coal and steel on the Continent, and also a lowering of prices. These things will, I am sure, be to the benefit not only of the peoples of the Community countries, but to the peoples of Europe generally, including ourselves.

6.13 p.m.

Mr. William Blyton: I am glad to have the privilege of closing the debate on this Agreement for this side of the House. Under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton), I played a small part in this matter during the early stages of the Schuman Plan at Strasbourg, and I shall try to answer some of the questions which have been raised in this debate.' I shall leave the Minister to answer the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke).
This Agreement is one of great importance and significance to this country, and I do not think that we can let it pass without looking at some of the history that has brought us to the point where we are today. On 9th May, 1950, M. Schuman, who was then the French Foreign Secretary, announced that it was intended to set up a supranational authority to take over the control of the coal and steel industries to which the Governments concerned would delegate their powers, and to set up a common market.
Three basic principles underlay the Schuman Plan. The first was that this was considered a way in which the feuds and fights between France and Germany could be brought to an end. The second


was that the supranational authority would take away the sovereign rights of Governments, and that all the powers would be vested in the High Authority. The third and very important factor was, as stated by M. Schuman in 1950, that the Plan should be regarded as the first step towards a federalist Europe.
It was after talks which took place between 14th and 19th May, 1950—I wish that the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) were here, so that he could have his history corrected—that France made it clear to us that the acceptance of the supranational authority with powers to over-ride Governments must precede the working out of the practical application of the Schuman proposals. That was a fundamental condition laid down by the French, and one which we could not accept.
At that time, there was a great upsurge on the Continent in support of a federalist Europe, and the Schuman Plan was regarded by all the Continental Powers as a first step towards that goal. There was never any disagreement about the economic aims of the Plan; it was the political approach underlying the Plan which caused the difference between us and which prevented us from entering into the discussions regarding the initial stages of the Plan.
What happened? The Conservative Party said at that time that we should have entered into those discussions in the same way as did the Netherlands Government, which was to accept the basis of a supranational authority on the understanding that, if we did not like it, we could withdraw from it. The Conservative Party realised the impracticability of that issue at the time. Indeed, it would have been very wrong to have entered into negotiations on the basis of the acceptance of a supranational authority in the knowledge that we disagreed with it, and then, after long discussions, to have withdrawn from it.
Throughout 1950 and 1951, members of the Tory Party, when in Europe, argued on these lines. There is no doubt that, while they were in opposition, they led the Europeans to believe that if only they had been in power, this country would have been with them all the way. In one speech on the subject, I heard the present Minister of Defence say that he had dashed in where

Mr. Bevin had feared to tread. At that time he was speaking about what was known as the Macmillan-Eccles Plan which, in the end, was rejected by the Committee on Economic and Social Questions of the Council of Europe, at Strasbourg.
The fact is that the Europeans would not look at that Plan because they thought it would either destroy or tamper with the supranational powers of the Authority. Indeed, when this Plan came before the Committee on Economic and Social Questions there was no one from the Tory benches to defend it. The Prime Minister was present at that time, but he did not sign the Plan for the best of all reasons that, as he determines the policy of the Conservative Party, he did not want to be embarrassed by the Plan.
The Tories, too, have rejected the idea of full membership of the European Coal and Steel Community. On 26th August, 1950, the present Minister of Education said that the Labour Party's intention was to prevent Britain from becoming a full member of the Community. The hon. Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir R. Boothby), whom I have not seen here today, has always advocated this country being a full partner in the Plan, with its supranational authority. He must be a disappointed man today, because, on 10th May, 1951, he stated that the Conservative Party would accept the supranational authority.
Time has proved him wrong. If he were here today, he would probably argue that this Agreement was a step towards the goal which he desires to reach. He is a long way from that, as far as this Agreement is concerned. Even the Minister of Housing and Local Government was playing the same tune, and all the time the impression was being created that if only they, instead of the Labour Party, had had the power, they would have been in full membership of this Community.
About this time, while there were quite honest differences about it, we did all we could to help the European Community to set up their plan. As an example, at the time of the Schuman negotiations with the six countries, one of the obstacles to agreement between France and Germany was the nature of the post-war allied controls over German industry.
Although the Labour Government at that time had very strong views on the relevant controls, we declared ourselves ready to accept whatever agreement France and Germany could reach with each other. It was that fundamental step that helped to clear the way for the building up of the Schuman Plan on the Continent. There was no dragging our feet in those days, nor were we "dancing a diplomatic minuet," as the Minister of Defence said we were.
For over 12 months the Conservative Party had given this impression. They obtained power in 1951, and playing politics on these big issues ceased. The Home Secretary of that time, now Viscount Kilmuir, was sent to Strasbourg to apply the cold douche to this attitude of 1950 and 1951. His prestige was high, for he had done great work in relation to the Convention on Human Rights, and that day was a very sorry one for him.
M. Spaak resigned from the Chairmanship of the Council of Europe. He came to the floor of the Assembly and made a bitter attack on the Tory Government for their attitude to the Coal and Steel Community. There were many heartaches among the Europeans over what appeared to them to be the acceptance of Labour's approach to the question, after all they had said.
What was our attitude in 1950 and 1951? We always said that Britain must be associated with the Plan, not as a full member, but in a status which would ensure a relationship based upon consent. We differed from the political approach of the Plan, but we could not agree that the fate of Britain's coal and steel industries should be decided by a body outside Britain, and, maybe, against the will of the British people. We always maintained that the internal economic structure should be determined by the Government of the day, and that the Government should be publicly responsible to the British people.
At the same time, while we could not agree on these great principles of the Plan, it would have been entirely wrong for us to have forced our views on the Europeans, who believed that the federal structure, with the Schuman Plan as a stepping stone to that ideal, was the solution of their troubles. It was in these circumstances that we said that the only honest way out of this dilemma was to

differ. On the other hand—and I wish the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery had been here—we did not take up an isolationist position. We said that, when the Community was set up, we would seek the greatest collaboration with the Authority which was consistent with the maintenance of the principles which I have stated.
What did we offer, not today, but in 1950 and 1951? We said that when the Authority was set up, we would seek agreement on capital development. We said we would balance our programmes in relation to theirs, so as not to waste European resources. We said that we would look at the price structure in order that workers in the industries should receive the highest possible wages. We offered to get some agreement on marketing, especially to protect our traditional markets and prevent us going back again to the insane scramble for markets which was a feature of the inter-war years and which brought the wages of the steel workers and the miners down to miserable levels.
We offered an agreement in relation to restrictive practices, because we recognised then that in a time of slump these practices could be used against us by the High Authority in our markets on the Continent. We also declared our readiness to seek an accommodation in relation to wages in the coal and steel industries, the intention being in accordance with our international aim to lift the wages of the continental worker up to the British level. We also offered agreement on the promotion of health and safety measures for the workers in the industries, because I have always regarded safety conditions in the British coal and steel industries as higher than those operating on the Continent.
These offers were made in 1950. They were difficult ones, but we then believed that these difficulties were not insurmountable. Everyone must now be aware that the Tory Party has accepted Labour's policy which we laid down in 1950. There is no acceptance, in this Agreement, of a supranational authority, nor any approach to federalism—because many hon. Members opposite played with the idea of federalism at this time. It is an Agreement based on consent on many of the matters which we put forward four years ago.
The Agreement is one which we can wholeheartedly support, as I believe it is an instrument which in the economic sphere can bring a closer relationship with the Continent than has ever existed before. It can be used to prevent the shambles of the inter-war years in these great industries, and bring about sane international economic planning.
I noticed that in every speech made today, and notably that by the Minister himself, no mention was made of the part which the trade unions are to play in this important issue of this Agreement. Article 2 of the Agreement lays down the composition of the United Kingdom membership as four persons. The Minister has stated that the National Coal Board and the steel employers are to be represented in those four. There is to be no representation for the trade unions, and no mention is even made as to what their relationship is to be to the coal and steel trade unions which will be concerned in this Association.
If there is to be common action on matters in Article 6—and these are very important—and in Articles 7, 8 and 9, we cannot expect to get far if the trade unions are ignored. Decisions made, especially under Articles 6, 7 and 8, can affect the livelihood of the men in the two great industries for better or worse. It is important, therefore, that the Minister should let us know what standing the trade unions are to have in this matter. It will not be easy to resolve many of the matters arising in Article 6, which are of common interest. I do not want to deal with all of them, but with the price structure, which will be very difficult. The wages of the men in these two industries are bound up with the price structure.
There is the important question of dual pricing. This practice has brought a good yearly revenue to the National Coal Board, and if it is abolished that revenue will be lost. We know that the Community is dead against the practice of dual pricing. The question that would arise would be whether the trade unions are to be expected to face the depressed balance-sheet caused by the loss of double pricing. Is this loss to be used against them to offset any application for an increase in wages? These are such important matters, embodied in Article 6, that the status of the trade unions ought to be clearly de-

fined. We should be told by the Minister exactly what he intends to do.
Apart from these matters, will the Government consult and take advice from the trade unions on the important issues in Articles 6, 7 and 8, before the Council of Association makes any decisions? The trade unions are in favour of working in close liaison with their European friends and support this Agreement.
My own union, the N.U.M., has an open mind on all the matters contained in the Agreement, and they are free to take an independent view. I suggest that in all these matters the trade unions which cover the coal and steel industries ought to be consulted, and their points of view ought to be taken into serious consideration, before any decision is taken either by the Council of Association or by the Government of the day. In these vital issues it is essential that the Government should carry the trade unions with them, because this Agreement, according to the Articles in it, is to last for the period of the Treaty itself, which is a period of 50 years.
Article 6 deals also with markets. Although our exports to Europe are only marginal, it would not be to our advantage to find ourselves shut out of Community markets by tariffs and quotas. This may seem today a small problem to the coal industry, because we can dispose of all the coal we produce, but one cannot predict what the future may hold. We hope not, but a slump could come again, and in those circumstances we would need our markets on the Continent again.
I regard it as vital that we should retain our traditional markets in Europe on the basis of agreement, and that we should not return to the old days when the workers were exploited in the effort to capture markets. There will have to be a give-and-take policy when action is decided under the Agreement, which cannot operate on the basis of taking all and giving nothing. It is because I recognise this that I implore the Minister to take the trade unions with him as far as he can.
Another point is that no provision is made in the Agreement for any political representation in the Common Assembly of the Community. Article 10 relates to meetings on matters which arise between the two parties. Does this go far enough?


Should we not have a voice in the Common Assembly of this Coal and Steel Community? Matters can arise there out of decisions taken by the Council of Association. This is very important. We are seeking to get the closest co-operation with the High Authority by consent, and in the Assembly Britain's voice ought to be heard when matters affecting decisions arising from this Agreement are raised.
Article 7 is also very important. While I cannot see it being used in the predictable future, it takes us some of the way in preventing discriminatory practices against each other. It ensures that, from our point of view, an agreement can be arrived at in times of slump and that we are not discriminated against in our markets on the Continent, so preventing the shambles that we have known in the past.
In deciding whether or not we should go into this Association, the question that must be asked is, "What is the alternative if we do not?" If we do nothing, it seems possible that Britain's Iron and Steel Federation might sooner or later enter into a commercial agreement with the Community producers. The Community has said that it would prefer a Governmental agreement. Of the two, I think a Governmental agreement is preferable. Other considerations that will arise are that we must seek to maintain the broad principles of full employment, and that the Association should not prevent the balanced planning of our economy. If we did not accept this Agreement, our trade union friends on the Continent of Europe might well accuse us of not carrying out our own policy, stated in 1950.
This Association does not, in my opinion, mean that exactly the same conditions can, or should be, applied to coal and steel, which have different problems and different histories, and will require a different approach on many matters contained in this Agreement. The Minister ought to realise now that whilst the primary interests of the trade unions concerned are iron and steel, the matters contained in the Agreement affect the whole of the trade unions generally.
The problems of this Agreement can be solved as we go along. We are now to get an opportunity to ensure that Britain's coal and steel industries shall

work in harmony and not in conflict with the Schuman Plan. In pursuit of our common economic aims we should seek to increase the efficiency of coal and steel production in the whole of Europe, while raising the standard of living of the workers in those industries, so that competition is not based upon the exploitation of labour.
As a personal note, let me say, as a miner in the export area of Durham, that I suffered from the economies in mining in the inter-war years. I suffered great privation in those days when we were scrambling for markets—cutting each other's throats in the mad competition which took place—and when our wages were forced down, after strikes and lockouts, in order to sell cheap coal abroad to capture markets.
The miners on the Continent were similarly placed. They were told that, because Britain had reduced wages, they could not compete against British coal, and their wages followed our trend. It is our ambition, on these benches, to ensure by this Agreement, if we can, that none of the people who are following us in the pits will experience the terrible times which we went through.
Whatever may have been our difference of views, it ought to be our common aim now never to go back to those days when we were scrambling for international markets. This Agreement embodies what we have always stood for since the Schuman Plan was first announced. We are pleased that the Government have accepted our approach to the problem. I hope that now we shall see a future of economic sanity brought about by close association, and that this Agreement will build a bridge of lasting friendship and peace in the Western world.
That is the spirit in which I support this Motion on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends on these benches. We shall give our utmost support to the Agreement in the knowledge that we are now embarking in the economic sphere on a method of dealing with international affairs which will ensure to the people of the Community and ourselves greater efficiency in our coal and steel industries production and, I hope, a higher standard of life for those in their employ. I offer my best wishes to those who operate this Agreement, and I hope that their future efforts will be successful.

6.42 p.m.

The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Anthony Nutting): We have had an excellent debate. When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) was speaking, he deplored the fact that so little is known in this country about the European Coal and Steel Community. I hope that this debate, and, if I may say with humility, particularly his own informative speech, will help to inform opinion in the United Kingdom about the working of this very remarkable and successful organisation.
I welcome the favourable reception which the House has today given to this Agreement. I am sure that the House will accept—indeed, it has shown that it does accept—that there are political and economic advantages in this Agreement. Politically speaking, it flows as a natural consequence of British policy in Europe, and provides for us in this country new and formal processes for strengthening and increasing our co-operation with the Continent of Europe in an all-important sphere.
As my right hon. Friend said in opening this debate, at the time that the Schuman Plan was launched there were differences between the two sides of the House as to the extent to which Britain should have been associated with this new initiative—although differences, I would add, not in terms which have been described to us by the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton). Whatever the conclusion he may have drawn from the speeches made from the opposite side of the House when we were there, none the less I am sure that if he consults the record he will see that neither the Prime Minister, nor my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, or any other spokesman of Her Majesty's Government of today, committed himself to accepting a supranational organisation or supranational control for the basic industry of this country.

Mr. Hugh Dalton: I think—and my right hon. Friend will correct me if I am wrong—that the references which he made were not to speeches in this House but to speeches made at Strasbourg, which may not have been quite so fully reported in the British Press.

Mr. Nutting: Whatever the right hon. Gentleman may say, I stick to the point

that if he consults the record he will find that no spokesman of Her Majesty's Government accepted, when in opposition, supranational control for Britain's basic industry.
There were also differences and, I need not add, disappointments on the Continent that Britain was not at that time more closely allied with the Continental powers in this venture. But this debate has shown that these differences in the House, and the differences with the Continent of Europe, have now been resolved. I think that goes for all of us here, and for our Continental friends as well.
I think we may fairly congratulate ourselves upon having found in these new arrangements with the Coal and Steel Community a true and proper balance of mutual co-operation and advantage. To those who still feel—and there are a few in the House—that Britain should have gone further and joined the Community as a full member, I would say this. We believe, in common with the late Government, that our special position makes it impossible for us to become full members of any supranational body.
We have taken the view, in common with the overwhelming majority of political and industrial opinion in this country, that we cannot surrender control over our coal and steel interests to any outside body or group. Although they would have rather had it the other way, the Governments of the member States of the Coal and Steel Community have now fully accepted this position. There is really nothing in this Agreement which undermines this position. I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) that his fears about any limitations arising out of Article 8, or any other Article in this Agreement, are completely unfounded.
This Agreement provides for a really close and intimate association. What is more, it provides an enduring association for, as the House is aware, the Treaty setting up the Coal and Steel Community has about 48years to run. It is only just embarking upon its course, and our agreement of association will, of course, run for the same length of time.
The hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring raised a very important point in connection with the representation of the


trade union movement and the unions concerned with the coal and steel industry. I can assure him, on behalf of the Government, that there is no question whatever of our ignoring the trade unions in this very important matter. I give him that pledge and that assurance. The delegation which will represent the United Kingdom on the Council of Association is a Government delegation, and for that reason it does not consist of representatives either of employers or of trade unions.
Neither the Iron and Steel Federation nor any of the unions are represented on the delegation as such. This is a Government delegation with the Minister on it and the statutory boards represented, but arrangements have been made to consult the unions and the employers through the statutory boards—the Iron and Steel Board and the Coal Board—or directly as between the Government and the unions, where this is appropriate and on issues concerning the trade unions and the employers.
My right hon. Friend has discussed these arrangements with the employers and the unions, just as we consulted them throughout the discussions which led up to the signature of this Agreement. I hope the hon. Gentleman will accept, both from our performance and from our pledge, that the trade unions have not been ignored, and will not be ignored, and are not being ignored in any shape or form.
Some fears have been expressed in the course of the debate that the creation of the common market in this Community may work to the detriment of our coal and steel industries. The hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) touched on this point, and so did my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Fylde (Colonel Lancaster). It would be a brave man indeed who would say that at no stage could this danger ever arise, and the larger the home market upon which an industry can rely the greater, of course, its powers of competition.
Surely this is an argument for and not against Britain having the closest possible association with the Coal and Steel Community, as both those hon. Gentlemen themselves said. Surely this argues the need for us, and for the Community, too, to have an observation post from which

we can both study developments. Surely this points to the importance of fullest consultation between the parties. If, from our observation post, and through the machinery we have set up for this consultation we feel, or we find, that the Community is contemplating action which may damage us, or vice Versa, efforts can be made to find alternative courses of action which would be more to the advantage of both sides.
The right hon. Member for Blyth, the hon. and learned Member for Kettering and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Fylde made the point that through this machinery we can probably arrive at a course of action which would obviate any steps being taken by the Community or by the United Kingdom which would operate to the disadvantage, to the detriment, or to the danger of each other's interests.

Major Legge-Bourke: My right hon. Friend will see that, by the Agreement, on the Council there are four representatives from the other countries and four from the United Kingdom. Will he say what happens when there is a draw?

Mr. Nutting: As my hon. and gallant Friend really should know, in these cases—where both parties reserve to themselves full freedom of action—there can be no question of a majority rule. All decisions which are taken will be taken, and can only be taken by full agreement, and by entire agreement between the two parties.
I suggest that the possibility of this machinery leading to agreed courses of action by the Community and by the United Kingdom industries is the answer to the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd), who asked how we can have closer association while retaining our full freedom of action. I believe it is true that by the machinery which this Agreement has set up we can have that closer association yet, at the same time, retain full freedom of action.
The right hon. Member for Blyth described this Agreement as a model of association with other similar institutions which may follow the Coal and Steel Community. I entirely agree with him, just as I agree that it is better that European integration should go on with British association rather than without it. The hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd) raised the question of


periodical reports, and arrangements for their discussion by Parliaments. Article 11 of the Agreement provides for the publication of an annual report.
The hon. Member asked whether we could not have reports at more frequent intervals. I have a little experience of these reports which emanate from the Coal and Steel Community—and so, indeed, has the hon. Gentleman. I think that, on reflection, he will agree that an annual report is a much more informative document; that it can give to the reader a much better indication of the general trend of developments in the industries concerned than can a quarterly or monthly report which, on the whole, is dealing with too small a piece of time.

Mr. Cherwynd: My whole point was the widest dissemination of the information to a public wider than Parliament. The Authority has an excellent information service, and I wondered whether we could not do something jointly on similar lines?

Mr. Nutting: We can, through our own services, give the fullest publicity to this report. So far as the House is concerned we shall gladly arrange to have the annual report placed in the Library for hon. Members to study, and if they wish to debate it opportunities may be found in the usual way.
Apart from our own arrangements for discussion within the House of Commons, there are, as the House is aware, under the plan which was brought forward in 1952 by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, joint meetings between the Parliamentarians of the Common Assembly of the Coal and Steel Community and of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe. I think that that will meet, to some extent, the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring, who wished to see British Parliamentary representation in the Common Assembly. We cannot very well ask to join the Common Assembly but we can ask for—and have asked and have received—satisfaction where it is a question of discussing coal and steel with the Common Assembly. Our Parliamentarians do discuss these matters at joint meetings in Strasbourg.
My hon. Friend the Member for Heeley (Mr. P. Roberts) asked me a question about Parliamentary control over the delegation which will represent the United

Kingdom on the Council of Association. Once again, I would say that the delegation is a Government delegation. It will be headed by a Minister; which Minister it will be will depend on what subject is under discussion—whether it is coal or whether it is iron and steel—and any decisions which are to be taken by the Council of Association will be Government decisions, for which the Government will, of course, in the ordinary way be collectively responsible to Parliament.

Mr. P. Roberts: I asked, really, about Parliamentary Questions. I assume that we shall put down our Questions to the Minister concerned, whether the Minister of Fuel and Power or the Minister of Supply as the case may be?

Mr. Nutting: So far as I am aware that would be the correct procedure, but, as my hon. Friend is aware, that also depends upon Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Roberts: Is it possible that we shall be met with the suggestion that a Question does not fall within a Minister's responsibility at all and is not, therefore, one which can be accepted at the Table? Can my right hon. Friend advise us on that?

Mr. Nutting: Mr. Speaker, I do not know about you, but before answering that I should certainly like to see the Question first.
Diplomatic immunities and privileges were drawn into the arena of debate by my right hon. Friend, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Blyth, if he will forgive my saying so, slightly "passed the buck" in dealing with this by saying that we must ask Sir Cecil Weir. We have anticipated his suggestion and are already consulting Sir Cecil Weir. I would say for my own part and for the Government that we would endorse the right hon. Gentleman's general feeling about the need to guard against the uncontrolled extension of diplomatic immunity and privilege in this country, but from his speech I take it that the Opposition would support the grant of such privileges and immunities as the Government decide may be necessary in the light of their consultation with Sir Cecil Weir.

Mr. Robens: Mr. Robens indicated assent.

Mr. Nutting: I should like to say a word about the working of the Community. Since the Community was estab-


lished the member Governments have cooperated fully and loyally with the High Authority. The Community's court has given its judgments on the operation of the Treaty without fear or favour, and these judgments have been honoured by all concerned—not least by the High Authority. The Community with which we are associated is, therefore, a going concern and, in reply to the pessimists on the other side of the House, I would stress that this has been proved more than ever by the events of last summer.
The Coal and Steel Community was originally conceived as the first step in the movement for integration, which was to be followed by the E.D.C. and the European Political Community. There were some who said that the Coal and Steel Community would never be able to survive the demise of the European Defence Community, but these prophets have been confounded.
The Coal and Steel Community did not founder, has not foundered; it has shown that it possesses a life of its own. I am sure that this is due in no small measure to the vision and to the drive of M. Jean Monnet, to whom so many tributes have been paid in the debate, in which I gladly join. I have confidence that this vigour within the Community will not be impaired in the future.
It is, therefore, fitting, I believe, that we should associate ourselves with this European industrial enterprise in respect of the two basic industries on which the modern economy depends. We are

already working in the closest partnership with our friends in Europe in the military, political and economic sphere. Through what I hope will be a growing industrial association, we should be able to add yet another field of co-operation to the benefit of all.
The right hon. Member for Blyth said that the consumer interest must be paramount. I agree, and I would emphasise that the Agreement, like the Community's Treaty itself, is not designed as a sort of benefit party for producers. All the parties to it have reaffirmed that full regard shall be paid to the interests of consumers as well as of producers and to the interests of third countries—and in that connection I need mention only the word "Commonwealth." The Agreement provides that due regard shall be paid to the special relationship between the United Kingdom and other members of the Commonwealth.
In conclusion, this Agreement is not an end in itself. It provides machinery within the framework of which we and our Continental partners can discuss together ways of working for our mutual benefit. It is an indication of our faith in the future in Western Europe and of our determination to associate ourselves closely with this important manifestation of European unity.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House approves the Agreement concerning the relations between the United Kingdom and the European Coal and Steel Community, signed on 21st December. 1954.

COUNCIL OF EUROPE

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. R. Allan.]

7.4 p.m.

Mr. Alfred Robens: It is perhaps particularly appropriate that, after the debate which has just concluded, we should turn our minds to the affairs of the Council of Europe at Strasbourg. We shall do this for the remainder of our Parliamentary day. While it will be a brief debate of three hours, I have no doubt that contributions will be made which will show that the time which Parliament has decided to devote to the Council of Europe is worth while.
I hope to set a commendable example of brevity in order that many of my Parliamentary colleagues on both sides of the House may be able to make a contribution. Therefore, I do not propose to wander over the whole scene, but rather to concentrate upon what I consider to be matters to which the House should give some attention. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who is speaking for the Government, will take note of the matters I shall raise and will convey them to the Minister of State or the Foreign Secretary, who is a member of the Committee of Ministers, because, unlike the debate which has just concluded, we have now entered a field in which we have responsibility, and the Foreign Secretary for the time being represents the British Government on the Committee of Ministers at Strasbourg. That is a powerful body, and it is therefore up to him to convey to his Ministerial Council the views of this House on relevant matters.
If, in all the European Parliaments of the 15 nations making up the Council of Europe, we can have debates of which their Foreign Secretaries, or their deputies who act at the Committee of Ministers, take note; and if they convey the feelings of their respective Houses of Parliament to the Committee of Ministers and thereafter down to the Council of Europe at Strasbourg, we shall then begin to link this European Parliament in a way which can be beneficial to all concerned.
I remember that when we debated this subject on a previous occasion I said

there was a great danger that the Council of Europe would die. I believe that was true then and I now believe that, as a result of a good deal of work which has been done in the last few years, the Council of Europe can live in a much more vital way than it has been living in the past. But much requires to be done, and I propose to say one or two things which I hope the Joint Under-Secretary of State will note and perhaps consider with a view to referring them to the Committee of Ministers when he or his colleagues are at their next meeting.
First, I start by saying that this European parliamentary forum is here to stay. It is worth while as a parliamentary forum. It can exist purely as a forum, or it can be something which does things. Just as in the previous debate we showed that a parliament need not be a legislative machine in order to be effective, so it may well be the case that, if we find work for the Council of Europe to do, whilst it will not have legislative powers it can nevertheless be of enormous influence with the Committee of Ministers and in that way influence the life of Europe.
In saying that it must be given something to do, I ought to add very quickly that it should be given something of its own to do. It has seemed to me that one of the weaknesses of the Council of Europe is that it has had to look around at what other international organisations have been doing and decide that it can play a part. I do not take the view that if two international organisations are studying the same problem it is necessarily wasteful or needless duplication or overlapping. It may be that the two bodies are approaching the same problem from different angles and that the discussions may be complementary. Nevertheless, I am bound to say that, in looking into this matter more closely, I have found a state of affairs which I cannot believe is satisfactory.
I have drawn up a few examples of what I regard as overlapping in terms of work. First, there is the question of refugees and manpower. Who is dealing with that in the international field? There is the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, there is the European Organisation on Manpower, there is the International Labour Office, there is the O.E.E.C. and there is the Council of


Europe. I cannot believe that five organisations can be effectively dealing with refugees and manpower without some duplication and some waste.
We turn to social security and we find that the International Labour Office, the Brussels Treaty Organisation and the Council of Europe are all dealing with it. We talk of the employment of the older worker, and the International Labour Office and the Council of Europe are both discussing it. We talk of the equalisation of social charges, and the International Labour Office and the Council of Europe are discussing it. When we come to the development of the undeveloped areas in Southern Europe, we find, if I may now lapse into initials, having given the full titles, that dealing with the matter are the E.C.E., the O.E.E.C. and the Council of Europe. If we talk of the problem of full employment, we find that the United Nations Economic and Social Council is dealing with the matter and so is the Council of Europe.
If we turn to economic development of overseas territories, we find that both O.E.E.C. and the Council of Europe are dealing with that matter. If we turn to the reduction of tariffs, we find both G.A.T.T. and the Council of Europe; if we turn to international cartels, we find the United Nations Economic and Social Council and the Council of Europe; if we turn to co-operation in the field of public health, we find the World Health Organisation and the Council of Europe; if we turn to European agriculture, we find the F.A.O. and the Conference of Ministers of Agriculture as well as the Council of Europe; if we turn to Statelessness and multiple nationality, we find the United Nations and the Council of Europe, and if we turn to problems of authors and ancillary rights in relation to television, we find the Berne Bureau, U.N.E.S.C.O., the I.L.O. and the Council of Europe.
I could give the House some more examples, but that would be tedious repetition. I think I have given sufficient details of important matters to show that there are too many organisations dealing with them to warrant the opinion that they are being dealt with without waste and inefficiency. I make no criticism of any single one of the organisations. As I have said, a problem can be approached from two or three different angles and

subsequent discussions and inquiries can be complementary, but I can hardly believe that in the list I have given that is so in every case. Therefore, I plead for some inquiry by the Committee of Ministers into the question of what I will term, for want of a better word, overlapping. I hope that, arising from a discussion by the Committee of Ministers, they might consider asking the Assembly of the Council of Europe for an opinion on the matter.
I take the view that the Council of Europe has been justified because it has been a parliamentary forum for very many important matters which must have been of very great benefit to Foreign Secretaries of the various nations when coming to conclusions. There is a very different atmosphere at Strasbourg away from our own internal political strife. One can look at a world or European problem in a quite different atmosphere. I am certain that speeches made there, because of the absence of the sort of party political strife which animates our life from time to time in this House, must have been of great benefit to Ministers who have to form opinions and come to conclusions on many weighty matters.
Therefore, I hope that it may be possible to make the Council of Europe a parliamentary forum for many of the European and international organisations which at the moment have no parliamentary forum. The Council of Europe has been able to develop this political forum idea. For example, the O.E.E.C. produces an annual report which is debated at Strasbourg. I am not sure that it is ideal once a year to debate an annual report. At one time I felt that when our industries were publicly-owned we would bring the searchlight of public opinion on their operations by a discussion of their annual reports in this House. Our experience has not been quite like that. We discuss the reports many months after they have been published. I do not think that has been the most effective way of turning the searchlight of public opinion on the operations of the boards.
I do not believe that merely to have the annual report of O.E.E.C. or of other organisations discussed at Strasbourg is the sort of parliamentary opinion we want. I would very much prefer that from time to time there should be interim reports dealing with specific matters


rather than an annual report dealing with the whole area of a subject. The Council of Ministers should be able to say to the Assembly from time to time, "Please discuss this specific matter"—whether it is an economic matter, a social matter, or a cultural matter—"We would like the opinion of parliamentarians on it before, as Foreign Secretaries, we make up our minds which way our respective countries ought to go."
I hope it will be possible to enable the Council of Europe to do things which could be effective and useful by making it a parliamentary forum for all the organisations which have been set up, particularly those set up since the war. If we do that we shall get a very happy compromise between the functional approach and the federal approach—the intergovernmental as against the federal approach.
Over the last three years, when I have been privileged to be one of the representatives of this House at the Consultative Assembly at Strasbourg, I have noticed how the atmosphere has changed, how the hard bickering between the functionalists and the federalists has disappeared. There is a more human approach to a problem as a problem and we are less concerned as to the kind of approach we should make. I think that is because those of us who have a functional approach to problems have seen the value of this parliamentary forum in Europe and the federalists have recognised that perhaps the parliamentary forum, outside their own communities, is as far as they can get in the direction in which they want to travel. We can make this work; we can make the Council of Europe a parliamentary forum which can influence Foreign Secretaries, which can influence Ministers and influence governments. In that way we can achieve integration in the political sense without federation and without subordinating any of our national parliamentary rights.
I believe that now we have a very good opportunity in which to start this operation. The good opportunity will present itself when finally the Paris Nine-Power Treaty has been ratified and the new Western European Union comes into operation. Here the Council of Europe has made one of the most sensible proposals that could possibly have been conceived. I hope the Committee of Ministers

will look at the proposal and find it acceptable. It has been said that we should not set up a separate parliament to deal with Western European Union as contained within the Agreement, but should see how far we can make the present Council of Europe fit the new situation. I do not propose to go into details of how that has been done; suffice it to say that it has been achieved.
We can use the Council of Europe—in a restricted way, I agree—as the parliamentary forum for Western European Union when it comes into operation. 1 regard that as a very useful piece of work, and I hope the Committee of Ministers will look favourably upon the decision arrived at in Strasbourg and that if and when W.E.U. comes into operation we shall begin to see the Council of Europe doing a job for itself, not merely having to be ancillary to many other organisations.
There is a third point I want to make to the hon. Gentleman. Again I do not want to be unfair, and I think we are extremely well served in many of the international organisations. Therefore, I will put it no higher than this, that there is a feeling that very often a number of public servants of various nationalities find this work in international organisations because their Civil Service chiefs at home feel that they are better without their services in their own departments. That is quite wrong. An international civil servant should be selected because of his ability, for so much depends on the efficiency of the work, guidance and advice which he and his fellows can give.
I hope, therefore, that the Council of Ministers will give very serious consideration to the development of an international secretariat for Strasbourg based not solely upon each nation demanding so many employees but upon the capacity of the men to do the job, whatever it may be. That means that there should be introduced a kind of civil service entrance examination similar to that which we have in this country.
I know there is an arrangement by which there is a balance struck for the Secretariat between the nationalities of the people working at Strasbourg. I suppose that must in one way or another be continued, but my own personal opinion is that I do not care what is the nationality of a man who is occupying a position.


What I do demand is that he be the most efficient man to do the job. Let us have an international secretariat of real excellence and efficiency. Let us have the best that we can get, and let us appeal to civil servants and those coming from universities, particularly the people who believe in international organisations, to offer themselves for this work so that we shall have individuals who are doing this as a professional piece of work because they happen to believe in this sort of organisation.
I could name offhand a number of people at Strasbourg who are there not because of the rewards they receive, but because they believe in a united Europe, because they believe in Strasbourg and are prepared to work there very often under less beneficial conditions and for smaller financial rewards than they would get elsewhere. But that is the kind of job they want to do. So I hope that Ministers will give consideration to the idea of building up an international civil service for which there is entrance examination with recruitment to the staff based upon ability.
The last thing I want to mention is this. I am inclined to think, because of the very large variety of organisations now dealing with similar or related matters, that we are spreading our European experts very thinly. I make no greater request than this, that it should be looked at as to whether or not there should not be organised at Strasbourg an international secretariat which would be capable of doing the work of other international organisations.
Most of the international organisations will require some staff of their own who are experts in a particular field, but there must be amongst all these international organisations, including the Council of Europe, a large number of people giving a common service. I do not know why it is necessary in that case to have groups of people all over Europe doing work that could be done at one place within a single common secretariat.
I do not know the answer to this. All I say is that there is obviously a problem, that we are spreading our experts in these international fields rather thinly, and that there surely is a case for an examination of the idea whether there is not an opportunity to build up an international

secretariat that could serve the existing international organisations in part or in whole, and also new organisations as they come into existence.
The Western European idea is an indication that that can be done because, with the exception of a few experts, I think it will be found that the secretariat at Strasbourg will be able to do the bulk of the work of W.E.U. If that is the case, we could concentrate in one place the best and most expert people among international civil servants so that their services would be available to a number of organisations. We should no longer be spreading our most expert international people, and I think that that would be to the great benefit of all these organisations.
Those are some of the things to which I hope the hon. Gentleman will give consideration. It is not a question today of arguing whether Strasbourg is good or bad. We have there this parliamentary forum. It is working better now than when I first went there. I think it can do a good deal more. It can be made more efficient, and I believe that we should now be turning our thoughts to constructive proposals for making it more efficient in creating greater unity amongst the European peoples.

7.26 p.m.

Mr. John Maclay: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) has made a second speech today with almost every word of which I am in entire agreement. He has made two admirable contributions to the subjects we have been debating today, and, in fact, his second speech has made it unnecessary for me to address the House for very long. I had also prepared a formidable list of organisations which were linked up with Strasbourg, and I have drawn much the same conclusions as the right hon. Gentleman has on the subject of overlapping.
Before I come to that point, however, I should like to deal with something which is more fundamental. I have been privileged to attend the Council of Europe, at Strasbourg, only during the last twelve months. When I first went there it was with the same attitude to the Council as most people in this country who have heard of it normally have. I say "who have heard of it" with some deliberation. There is no doubt that the work of the Council of Europe is not a great public issue in this country. If one


talks about it in one's constituency there are not many people who understand what one is talking about. We cannot quickly cure that, but I would mention that every time I have spoken at universities or to young people on the subject they are interested. That is what really matters, because it is the European idea, the idea of sensible co-operation, which is important above all to future generations.
Now that the supranational issue of E.D.C. is out of the way, whatever one may have felt about it in the past—and I was a supporter of it—there is no doubt that some fears have been removed. Young people can be persuaded to take a great interest in this work and the time will come when, through their own efforts or through various organisations which are doing constructive work for European union, they will take an active part.
Now I come to what was my approach when I first went to Strasbourg. I thought that the Council of Europe was probably another useful organisation which had not much real effect on international life. I expected to find a group of people meeting and talking at the Council and its main value to consist of the personal contacts made outside the Assembly, and even outside committee, in the lobbies and tea rooms or wherever one goes in Strasbourg and meets people.
That I found to be true but, along with everybody else who has taken part in the detailed committee work and the detailed debates of the Consultative Assembly, I found that its importance was much greater. The Council is undoubtedly filling a gap in Europe. It is meeting the desire, above all, since the war, to cease thinking exclusively nationally and to find some meeting point of ideas which, while preserving nationality, can reflect the bigger thought of Europe—above all, of free Europe.
This takes expression in several different ways. In the Assembly debates national attitudes are brought out strongly. But even in this last year one began to see national attitudes merging slightly with multi-national points of view. That is their value. In commitee, the national point of view seems to disappear almost completely. National party attitudes may be reflected in committee work, but often there is concentrated attention on the

issue before the committee with speakers practically forgetting their own basic nationality. Sometimes, of course, they remember it too quickly, and remarks they have made in the course of the discussion are not always borne out in the voting. Yet in the process there is an interesting widening of thought going on all the time and that must be valuable.
Another thing which is worth noting by people who have not seen the Council of Europe in action is that while in the foreign affairs of this country the backbench Member does not contribute much to effective policy, that is not the case on the Continent. In this country the Government make up their mind, they have their negotiations, they come to conclusions which, of course, the House of Commons discusses and we have our influence in debate and can throw out a Government; but we do not do that very often from the back benches. This produces a stability of Government here which is helpful to the world generally, but back benchers on the Continent are extremely powerful, if not all-powerful, in foreign affairs. We have had too many examples of that lately. What is happening in Strasbourg now is that we are getting together with the back benchers of European Parliaments, arguing with them, trying to persuade them, according to what we think is right, as to what they ought to do.
I would not pretend that the debates in the Assembly or in committee of the Council of Europe affect vitally the decisions of foreign Governments, but they certainly affect the ability of foreign Governments to get policies through when it comes to debates and votes on foreign affairs in their own Parliaments. All of us working there realise that we are not just talking and arguing with individuals. The people we are arguing with have different constitutions and different electoral systems from our own and they are those who will determine foreign policy. I know that the Minister is very conscious of this fact and I hope that the Foreign Office also realise it.
Sometimes I have felt, perhaps wrongly, that the Foreign Office in our own country, as well as in others, looks on some of the operations of the Council of Europe as rather a nuisance. I do not entirely blame them for that attitude. There we have ordinary Members of Parliament getting together and discussing


what should properly be the affair of the Quai D'Orsay and other places where these things are properly discussed. But I beseach Foreign Offices in general to appreciate the real value of the purely political debates at Strasbourg.
As far as the committee work is concerned, the right hon. Member for Blyth mentioned the overlapping of the organisations which exist for Europe and for international purposes. It is a formidable list and I have another half-dozen to add to those mentioned already. However, a point which was not covered by the right hon. Gentleman was that all these authorities, almost without exception, are bodies of experts; they are Government officials and not Parliamentarians. That must be remembered when we are trying to work out a more effective procedure for the Council of Europe. I believe, with the right hon. Gentleman, that much more can be done by the Council of Europe to pool the efforts of all those organisations to avoid overlapping and to make their work more effective.
I doubt whether the Council of Europe, even with its Secretariat, can ever take their place. We may find, however, that we can cut down the number of these organisations because the duty of a Parliamentarian, whether in his own Parliament or in the Council of Europe, is to scrutinise the work of the different executives, and all these international bodies are the product of the decisions of different Governments. If we can get our procedure worked out so that in committee we are in constant touch with the work of those other bodies, we can see much more effectively that there is no overlapping and that money is being wisely spent. We have slight difficulties over the control of the spending of money but obviously, although I regret it, the Assembly in its present structure cannot expect to have effective control over the spending of the member Governments.
However, the right of comment is important and we might develop the various devices already set up for maintaining contact with, for example, O.E.E.C. That is working well. Liaison with the Brussels Treaty Organisation is fairly good, but it could develop more than it has done. The Brussels Treaty Powers have certain functions on economic matters, social and cultural.
Their economic functions are carried out almost entirely by O.E.E.C. which links up well by a system of annual report and, still more important, by the occasional visits of their experts to our own committees at Strasbourg. Relations with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation are being worked out though not yet effective. If, therefore, we could see what are the limits of what Strasbourg can do, and then work to those limits, we can do something worth while.

Mr. Robens: This is interesting. I should like to ask the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman on the following point. Let us assume that O.E.E.C. is invited by Ministers to look at an economic problem. Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that it would be worth while if, at the Council of Europe, we had a political debate before the problem went to the experts?

Mr. Maclay: Yes, I can visualise occasions when it might be, though it is difficult to think out at once how the procedure would work. If a new problem arose it might be well to get a preview in that way.
The real point is that too much has been hoped for of Strasbourg by some people in the past. They have wanted it to become something it cannot be unless we reach a full federal Europe. I do not object to those who think that the federal solution is right for free Europe continuing to advocate it, but I ask them to realise that the Consultative Assembly is not a federal body, and that there has been a waste of effort in the last few years in trying to make it something that it cannot be.
My own impression is that this attitude is beginning to modify and that there is a greater realisation of what power we have in the Council of Europe. If we concentrate on using those powers, which are considerable—members of the Parliaments of 15 nations, with a good Secretariat, getting together to consider the great and minor problems of the day, expressing views on them, forwarding them to Ministers—that is all extremely important and useful work. If we use that to the full extent of our ability in accordance with the existing constitution, we can do very much more than in the past. I remain convinced that the Council of Europe is a great


experiment which has fully justified itself and can justify itself still more in the years to come.

7.40 p.m.

Mr. George Brown: My only reason for intervening now is that, like the two right hon. Gentlemen who have preceded me, I have been to Strasbourg, although my term of duty there finished a year or so ago. As it happens, I hold a point of view almost exactly opposed to that of the two right hon. Gentlemen. It is probable that I shall be the only hon. Member who will put this point of view, and it may irritate many people that I put it in the way that I do, in which case I apologise in advance.
I think there is a grave danger that the atmosphere of Strasbourg somehow captures the imagination of the people who go there, and it is rarely that one sits back and looks critically at the Council of Europe and at what it is trying to do and achieving. It may be that I am completely wrong and that my right hon. Friend the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Maclay) are right, but I should like to say what I have to say and hear what arguments are brought against it.
I believe that the difficulty is that both right hon. Gentlemen have begun by seeking to make a case for the Council of Europe which is tenable only on a federal or supranational basis. Having made a case which is tenable only on that basis, they then say that that basis is not acceptable and that something must be thought out to justify what the Council of Europe can do, since they have already destroyed the basis on which it could be a real Council of Europe. The reason the right hon. Gentlemen are in their difficulty is simply that they are then struggling hard to think of justification for something the justification for which they have already destroyed.
I am most interested in the fact that the right hon. Member for Renfrew, West, having worked himself up to describe what might be done, was presented with a perfectly pertinent point by my right hon. Friend, who was, I thought, trying to help him to use clearer words, but instead of saying "That is what I meant," he said that one would have to think whether it would work out that way

or not and that one could not say straight off that it would be so.
The difficulty is that the Council of Europe cannot be what it was "sold" as going to be. One of the reasons I have no great difficulty in going to meetings of universities and young people, who are very keen to be keen about the European idea, and putting forward a different point of view from that of the right hon. Gentleman, is that I am afraid that he is so leading them up the garden path about it—he may be very careful about what he means by "Council of Europe" but he is encouraging them in ideas which nobody is really seriously trying to carry out—that there will finally be a great deal of disillusionment.
My right hon. Friend said that the Council of Europe should be given something of its own to do. Neither when I was at Strasbourg nor since have I ever found anyone who could describe what it could be given of its own to do.

Mr. Frederick Peart: Mr. Frederick Peart (Workington) rose——

Mr. Brown: I would give way, but I know that my hon. Friend himself wants to speak. I realise that he feels strongly about my having taken part in the debate so soon. Since he feels like that, I think it would be better if he answered me in the course of his own speech.
The difficulty about trying to give the Council of Europe something of its own to do is that the Council cannot do anything of its own. It is not a Government body, and it is not a body with any powers. When we are talking about overlapping with the I.L.O., the World Health Organisation or the Food and Agriculture Organisation we are simply not comparing like with like. There may well be some overlapping between the Government organisations which have been set up since 1945, but, by definition, the Council of Europe cannot overlap with them. Those organisations are set up as functional bodies with powers, with Government backing and with Governments being committed by what is done, whereas the Council of Europe, by definition, is not that at all. Nobody is committed by what the Council of Europe discusses.
My right hon. Friend several times said that the Council of Europe is justified as a Parliamentary forum. At the


end of his speech he said that it was not a question whether it was good or bad; it existed as a Parliamentary forum. If the Council were prepared to be a Parliamentary forum, a rather supranational I.P.U. as it were, I should be happy about it, but that is exactly what the Council will not be. At any rate, that is what it does not want to be. Nobody going there wants it to be a supranational I.P.U. or Parliamentary forum discussing what all the other executive, Government-packed bodies axe doing.
Speaking for myself, I got a lot of personal value out of going there and meeting colleagues from other Parliaments, and no doubt those who follow me will derive the same benefit, and, therefore, the Council may be justified from that point of view, but I do not see that it can be justified on the ground of fitting it in as one of the Governmental executive bodies, which it is not.

Mr. Maclay: The right hon. Gentleman is missing the point. If he had listened to the earlier speeches on the subject he would have discovered that no one is attempting to do what he is suggesting about the Council of Europe.

Mr. Brown: I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman means that I did not hear the speeches which just preceded me. I heard them, but whether I understood them is another matter, although I did my best.
What I am saying is that nobody says that that is what the Council is trying to do, but when we talk about overlapping with Government organisations and suggest that overlapping between the Council, the I.L.O. or the W.H.O. should be stopped, that can be the only logical conclusion of what is being said. Otherwise, there is no point in the remark about overlapping.
By definition, merely complaining about the overlapping must mean that one thinks that one organisation is doing something that another could do. The Council cannot do anything that the other organisations do because its whole nature is different. Other delegations to the Council will not accept the argument that it can be just a forum for debate; they want the Council to do things and all the time they are pressing that it should do things.
For the same reasons I do not find attractive my right hon. Friend's idea of

an international secretariat at the Council of Europe, doing jobs for the other organisations. It would be a waste to send an international secretariat of high standing to Strasbourg to service an organisation which can do nothing at the end of it, which can initiative no real thing, and which can commit nobody at home to its function. Certainly, such a body could not do the secretariat work for organisations like I.L.O. or F.A.O., where an altogether different job has to be done in altogether different circumstances and for altogether different reasons.
Whenever I spoke like this at Strasbourg—I did so sometimes, both privately and publicly—I was accused of being against European co-operation. I hope I have more success with you, Mr. Speaker, than I had over there with my colleagues from the Continent. I take this line precisely because I want to see some effective European co-operation. I am a trade union official if I am anything at all, and the international trade secretariats of the trade unions and the I.L.O. achieve far more in the way of real integration than the Council of Europe can ever do.

Mr. John Hynd: Because they have the power.

Mr. Brown: Yes, it is because they have the power. Nobody is prepared to give the Council of Europe the power to do it. I certainly should not be willing to give it. My view is that co-operation can only be effective if Governments are committed by what the Council does and if the people who go there have some authority.
What is Strasbourg? With all respect to my distinguished colleagues who have been there before, during and since my short visit, the fact is that it is a meeting place for the Oppositions of Europe. It is a meeting place for people without power at home; for people who have no platform at home. Discussion there commits no one at home, neither the speaker nor his friends nor his party; nor, what is more important, the Government at home.
The right hon. Member for Renfrew, West said that at Strasbourg we could get at the back-benchers. I think that had he put the point the other way round and said that at Strasbourg the backbenchers got at us, he would have been


nearer the mark. Strasbourg is a Parliament of back-benchers. They go there without having consulted anyone, without responsibility to anyone and they commit no one. They shoot off their own views. If one suggested that the keynote of the place was irresponsibility, it might sound rather harsh, but I do not think that it would be far wrong.
Think of the mischief which has been done there from time to time. The present Prime Minister went there as a displaced person without a platform. He amused himself in a high old way and in a manner in which various other Ministers have found it difficult to remedy. It took a long while for the Foreign Office to remedy some of the things which the Prime Minister did. The mischief which the Prime Minister did at Strasbourg caused a lot of harm to this country and to those of us there during the days when we tried to reach an understanding about the impossibility of the wider conception of E.D.C.
A great deal of mischief was also done by M. Henri Spaak when he had no platform at home, and it is being undone now with great difficulty. I doubt whether the idea of a Western defence integration with a German contribution would have taken so long or been so difficult a matter had we not had the Strasbourg Assembly, where a good deal of mischief was done which has taken a long time to undo.
My other criticism or complaint is that the Assembly at Strasbourg has no real interest in real things. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blyth spoke about the discussions on economic affairs and O.E.E.C. My experience was that at Strasbourg we would begin a discussion on O.E.E.C. very late on a certain evening, quite accidentally. When it was discovered that the Committee on Political Questions had not its report ready for the projected discussion on a political question, the O.E.E.C. Report would be rushed in; a few speeches made, and then the debate put off until the following week.
It was extremely difficult to get a real discussion at Strasbourg about real things, such as the economic condition of Europe, on questions of financial policy which might damage other countries, because those were questions on which authority and commitments are essential.

One may talk about political questions and grand plans—I think that "Faite I' Europe" was the expression generally used when speakers could not think of anything else to say—but when one started to argue about currency issues, financial policies, economic questions, trade and trade union rights, and so on, one found oneself in the sphere of concrete decisions, and it does not seem to me that Strasbourg is empowered to deal with such things.
None of this would matter, nor should I be justified in discussing it now, were it not that I feel that Strasbourg could be a dangerous place for Great Britain. The attitude of our Continental friends is largely one of putting pressure upon us. They always seem to want something from us, which is natural enough, because we seem always to be doing something which would, or would not, be helpful to them. I remember the earlier discussions about a "green pool." My hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Peart), who now fills more adequately than I various posts on agricultural committees which I formerly held, will have a better knowledge of the present position. But I remember the earlier discussions about a European agricultural authority which was to be a wide-ranging supranational body to exercise widespread control over agricultural production, consumption and prices in Europe.
Some of us had great difficulty in "holding the pass" about that. What would it have added up to? After all, if one is as kind as possible one may still say that the French do not outshine us in their ability to control their home agricultural producer or to get him to produce what is required and to sell it at the requisite price. But the French were very keen on forming an organisation to control our agricultural production. We should have found ourselves wide open to receive whatever the Danes, the Dutch or the Italians wanted to send—and the French, too, if they had anything to send—while we should have been obliged to get rid of a large part of our agriculture in order to take it.
Their argument was that such a relationship on our part was fundamental and proper to the agriculturists in Europe. That was the sort of thing which we should do. No consideration was paid to


the extent to which we should have to stretch our economy and alter our social life, and so on, to do so—to say nothing of the effect it would have on the standard of our workers. When I was at Strasbourg it seemed to me that all the time we were being made the subject of continual pressure so that we might be, as it were, pushed back, and forced into conceding this, that and the other. That appears to me to be very dangerous.
Can Strasbourg be made an effective place? Not, I think, in the way argued by my right hon. Friend. Not if the Council is inserted, as it were, into the field of Government bodies. That cannot be done with what is merely a meeting of Parliamentarians without responsibility. I suppose it might become an assembly or a forum, but I do not think that it would stay like that. I do not think that the Continental politicians would be content with such a situation, and so I doubt whether Strasbourg has much of an effective part to play at all. I do not wish to see it overshadow or hamper existing executive bodies such as O.E.E.C., the I.L.O. or the F.A.O. I do not wish to see such organisations tied to the Strasbourg chariot, which would mean that they would be held back in their work.
There have been many discussions about those who go to Strasbourg and the composition of our delegation. Our representatives have been changed at fairly frequent intervals. It is a matter for argument as to how long anyone should stay as a representative at Strasbourg. Of course, if changes are made at frequent intervals it often happens that one drops out from important committees just at the point when one feels that there is a chance of doing something useful.
I enjoyed my period at Strasbourg, but I think I got out while I was still able to be objective about the place. There is a lot to be said for British Parliamentarians—with their rather different tradiditions and outlooks vis-à-vis the Parliaments of our Continental friends—going to Strasbourg and mixing with our Continental colleagues and seeing that our traditions are explained to them as well as theirs to us. But there is little to be said for our people staying there beyond the point at which they can continue to explain that difference and why Parliament works as it does over here.
I am sure that it is a bad thing for a Minister to go to Strasbourg. A Minister there becomes the subject of very great pressures. He gets into great difficulty, and begins sending telegrams back home seeking instructions, just as though he were leading a delegation at one of the executive, Government-backed organisations. He begins to make compromises, just as he would in other places. He begins to do deals behind doors late at night, just as is done at the United Nations, without realising that when he makes a compromise, although he does so upon the instructions and with the prior agreement of the Government at home—to whom he has sent and from whom he has received telegrams—the people with whom he is dealing are in no position to do the same, because they are members of opposition parties and are irresponsible. If we are to continue to go to Strasbourg, I want it to be regarded as a forum for debate by back benchers, or front benchers who are not carrying Ministerial responsibility. We shall then be on all fours with the others and shall not get into trouble.
Above all, I hope that we shall resist the temptation to think of ourselves as a Continental European Power. That we are not. Although it is common form now for everybody who makes a speech about anything to preface it by saying that the H-bomb has changed our fundamental thinking, I still say that we are not a Continental European Power. We are still a world Power, at the head of a Commonwealth, with all kinds of different interests and outlooks. One of the dangers about Strasbourg is that we get pushed into a state where we forget that fact, and begin thinking of ourselves as a Continental European Power. One of the reasons I was always so glad to see the Australian observer, Sir Keith Officer, at Strasbourg was that he was a visible reminder to us, when we were getting most wrapped up with the intricacies and subtleties of the Strasbourg atmosphere, that we had commitments and interests outside which we ought to remember.
I apologise again for having spoken for so long. I thank the House for listening to my point of view, with which most hon. Members must be in grievous disagreement and which must be most unattractive to them, but I feel very strongly


that it is becoming almost common form not to face the important and fundamental facts about the Council of Europe, but to find something nice to say about it if we can. I hope that the House will at any rate do me the honour of thinking about what I have said.

8.3 p.m.

Mr. Peter Smithers: I have listened with very great interest to the three right hon. Gentlemen who have spoken. I might almost use the Strasbourg phrase—"my three dear colleagues." The right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) seemed to think that what he said would meet with a great deal of disapproval on the part of Members on both sides of the House, but such a lot of what he said is so obviously based upon common sense and upon his own very robust appreciation of things that I agree with a great deal of it. What I disagree with are many of his subsidiary conclusions.
He said three things with which I agree. First, I agree that it is not relevant to speak of overlapping in the context of the Council of Europe, which, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, is trying to do something totally different from all the other organisations. On the other hand, the right hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) was quite right when he indicated the extent to which the Council of Europe might play a complementary rôle to many of those organisations.
I should like to make a digression for a moment to show how the fact that many organisations are participating in a certain project does not necessarily mean that their functions are overlapping, and I hope that I shall take the right hon. Member for Belper with me in this argument. I would point out what happened in the case of the convertibility of sterling, and the moves made towards it. First, there was the 1952 Commonwealth Conference, at which it was discussed; then there was a visit by the Chancellor to the United States to discuss the same topic; then there were bilateral talks with all the European powers; then a debate at the Council of Europe. The O.E.E.C. then became the centre for technical consultation upon this very complicated and important matter, and a Ministerial Group, of which the Chancellor is the chairman, was set up to handle it. There were bilateral talks between the United Kingdom and the International Monetary

Fund, and also between the United Kingdom and G.A.T.T. upon the world trade aspect. Finally, there were consultations with the European Payments Union and O.E.E.C. as to what would replace those bodies after convertibility.
The right hon. Member for Blyth might say that that was a case of overlapping, but I should like to mention what was said by the Secretary-General of O.E.E.C, Monsieur Marjolin, namely, that it was a veritable combined operation. While I do not deny what the right hon. Gentleman said in opening the debate, namely, that there may be much overlapping, I believe that it is quite misleading to read out a long list of the initials of organisations and to say, "Cannot we roll them all into one and make them a single organisation?" My reason for saying so is quite simple and fundamental. If we had a world state, or even a European state, we could set up authorities with all-embracing qualities in the economic, social or any other field. But so long as we have a world or a Europe divided up into many different political spheres, it is inevitable that we must have quite a variety of organisations to tackle the various problems which arise.
The business of the Council of Europe, as was said by the right hon. Member for Blyth, is to marshal political opinion in the various countries behind the admirable work which is being done by various organisations at an intergovernmental level and to enable us, in our various Parliaments, to take our electorates with us. That is the useful and proper role of the Council of Europe.
On that point I am in disagreement with the right hon. Member for Belper. He said that he did not want to Council of Europe to overshadow O.E.E.C. and the various other international bodies. Nor do I; it would be ridiculous—and I do not think that there is any danger of it doing so. The fact is that the experience of the right hon. Member for Belper in these matters was short—as he said.

Mr. G. Brown: Two years.

Mr. Smithers: Yes; but it was intense, and is now a little out of date. The whole atmosphere of the place has changed, through bitter experience. The


failure of the E.D.C. experiment, for example, has gone a long way to convince our Continental colleagues that a supranational authority and the federal solution, though they may come, will not work today. The failure of E.D.C. was proof of that. The French nation rejected it categorically, as I believe, when the French Parliament refused to sanction it.
The right hon. Member for Belper complained that Strasbourg captures the imagination of Members who go there. I agree. If he was not captured by the atmosphere of Strasbourg he must be a uniquely insensitive individual because, after a little while, most of us feel that we are in touch with a great living movement, with political forces from all over Europe which are much more intense than ours and which have a desire for a Europe much better, in three respects, than what went before.
First of all, there is the urgent desire to build a solid European economy, so large and powerful that we shall be able to support and bear out the political ideas in which we in this free continent believe, whatever our party may be. Secondly, we must be big enough and powerful enough to enable us to organise a really effective European defence system. And thirdly, of course, in the process of doing those things, we must resolve the international quarrels which have plagued Europe in years gone by.
Those three things are great ideals, and I believe that they inspire the vast majority of the delegates who go to Strasbourg, from whatever nation or whatever party. I am sorry that these ideas did not inspire the right hon. Member for Belper when he was there. I can only hope that he will go back one day and have another try. There were a number of other points in his speech which I should have liked to have answered. He said that the case was tried to be made on a supranational basis by those who support the Council of Europe experiment; and that, in fact, the Council of Europe cannot do anything on its own. I do not agree with either of those statements.
In the first place, I do not really think that there is anybody who goes to Strasbourg from this House who thinks other than that the proper role for the Council

of Europe is that of a parliamentary forum, about which the two right hon. Gentlemen who opened the debate spoke. That is its proper rôle. Then the right hon. Gentleman said that the Council of Europe cannot do anything. So able a Parliamentary debater as he ought to be the very last man to say that a Parliamentary forum cannot do anything. I remember him blowing the roof off this place time and time again with his very able and discomforting speeches.
In the Council of Europe we have a very admirable forum, and I believe that everyone who goes to Strasbourg comes back powerfully influenced by the debates which take place there. Many such things which have altered my political opinions—and, I believe, those of some of my hon. Friends—live in my memory. If the right hon. Gentleman is so insensitive to other people's points of view, and if, for instance, he regards the eloquence of M. Spaak as just mischief, then I am sorry for him. As for political leaders making Strasbourg a place where those in opposition work mischief——

Mr. G. Brown: Hear, hear.

Mr. Smithers: The right hon. Gentleman says "Hear, hear." Does he include his right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) in that category? I must say that during that right hon. Gentleman's time at Strasbourg he has played a most responsible part, and I think that the right hon. Member for Belper ought to have made an exception in his case. I am very surprised that he did not.
The right hon. Gentleman also complained that pressure was being placed upon us to do this, that and the other. Of course there is. In the Continent of Europe we are acknowledged to be much the most coherent and powerful European nation at the present time. No one disputes that, and it is always the prerogative of leaders to be under pressure. Let the right hon. Gentleman ask his own leaders if they are ever under pressure. I am sure that they would not deny it at the present time. If Britain, because of the role she plays in Europe, is under much fiercer pressure at Strasbourg than one of the small Powers or one of the ex-enemy occupied countries, that is only a natural consequence of our very important position in that Assembly.
I am looking through my notes to see what other interesting observations the right hon. Gentleman made, but I am afraid that if I go on to consider them any further I shall have to tear up all of the speech which I wanted to make. However, I will endeavour briefly to deliver a little of it. I think that it is a good thing for us to be debating the Strasbourg Assembly today, because we are at a point where European opinion is rapidly changing and where the European institutions through which we work are also altering very rapidly. Therefore, I think it advisable for this House to give some indication of what is the national attitude—if I may use such a phrase—towards this institution.
I believe that it is possible to deduce certain things about it. A few months ago, I said that there were three political driving forces in Europe at the present time: the desire to bear out our own way of life by a corresponding economic and financial effort, the desire to provide for our defence, and the desire to prevent internal European conflicts in the future. I think those are the things for which the Council of Europe was set up, and that they were the great aspiration which gave it life. But, of course, as soon as it began to work, it became apparent that there were great differences as to how these things should be done. The federalists tried to impose on a Europe not ready for it a political formula, namely, federalism.
I am quite clear in my own mind that we cannot create the political facts of life by popping a formula on top of the situation. We have, first, to create a situation and then find a political formula to fit it. It was soon found that it would be quite impossible to establish any federal organisation within the Council of Europe, because the United Kingdom was there. Therefore, we came to a compromise arrangement in the European Coal and Steel Community, an organisation which we discussed earlier today, whereby those who wanted to federate went outside the Council of Europe to do it, so to speak, and whereby it was arranged that Britain and the non-federal Powers should have links with them. But when that was tried in the E.D.C. it was found that we could not unite Europe on any basis in which Great Britain did not play the same part as that played by the

other major political Powers on the Continent, and so the second home truth came to dawn upon us. I believe that we are now clear as to what can and what cannot be done in Europe towards creating a more closely integrated continent, and as to what the rôle of the Council of Europe should be.
So I wish to say two things to my right hon. Friend the Minister. The first is that I am sure that, having made a considerable political advance with the Western European Union arrangement and having, as it were, tacked the European Coal and Steel Community, the remainder of the federal experiment, on to the rest of Europe by the Agreement which has just been made, we should now concentrate all our efforts and policy on the firmer economic integration of Europe.
The public would be astonished if it fully appreciated what has already been done, if it knew the extent to which all the organisations represented work together and the extent to which Governments work together in a system utterly different from anything which existed before the war. The old days of cut-throat competition, to which one of my hon. Friends referred earlier on, are quite gone by; and there is now a truly international approach in Europe to many problems, such as unemployment, financial and economic policies and so forth. This is a very fruitful field, and very much more can be done there.
I suggest, then, that our policy should run along two main lines. The first should be economic integration, which can be swiftly carried forward, and, the second should be an intensification of the economic work of the Council of Europe to which reference has already been made by two of the right hon. Gentlemen who preceded me. By taking more interest in economic affairs, the Council of Europe can bring an international Parliamentary opinion to bear and to support the efforts of the Governments who are collaborating to bring about a more closely integrated European economy. It is very difficult to draw the line between what is economic and what is political. If we get a single European economy, we shall one day begin to find that we are approaching a situation where political union will not seem so attractive because it will not be


so necessary. We shall have arrived at something which will be very much better.
I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister and his colleagues in the Foreign Office will take from this House to the Council of Ministers at Strasbourg the following message. There is an invaluable service to be performed in the growing political community of Europe by a great debating Assembly, an Assembly competent to debate all subjects but which, at the present time, ought to be helping to carry forward the economic integration of Europe. If it does that, I believe the Assembly will continue to make a very valuable and increasing contribution to the unification of Europe, without any of the dangers and difficulties which the right hon. Member for Belper so eloquently put before us actually arising.

8.20 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Peart: I agree very much with a great deal of what was said by the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Smithers), particularly in reference to the need for more economic debates in the Council of Europe, and that is where I should like to take up the cudgels with my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) who spoke so strongly against the Council of Europe. I am certain that my right hon. Friend feels that it has outlived its usefulness and that we should not give it that support which we are doing this evening.
From my own experience over the last three years, I have felt that there has been an attempt in the Council of Europe to debate precisely those subjects which have been mentioned by my right hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman opposite. Economic matters have been debated, not only in the Consultative Assembly and the full Assembly itself, but also in the respective committees. I know that we have had over the last year considerable debate, for example, in the agricultural committee, and there I agree with the hon. Member for Winchester when he says that my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper is out of date.
I have found that the agricultural committee, which was originally designed to set up to try to organise procedure and preparations for the creation of a high authority, has changed its functions entirely. Today the agricultural committee, in the light of the decision to create a

new organisation in Europe for agricultural marketing, is concerned with real things, and that committee of the Council of Europe is now doing a very useful job.
Indeed, I remember that my own first humble contribution at Strasbourg was to try to get the Consultative Assembly to agree that a specific agricultural problem—a very humble but important one—concerning livestock disease in Europe should be a matter of concern of the Council's agricultural committee, and that that committee should do more of that work. I know that that committee now has to discuss European forestry, and my right hon. Friend should know that a joint committee, of which he was the distinguished chairman, conducted a very valuable survey connected with the resettlement of agricultural refugees. That committee's work has been continued, and I hope it will carry on.
I hope the House will not accept the pessimism of my right hon. Friend, but will recognise that there has been a change at Strasbourg and that we are now having more and more debates on economic matters. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Chatham (Mr. Bottomley), who will wind up from this side in this debate, has over and over again at Strasbourg devoted many of his speeches to economic matters, not only those affecting Europe, but also those affecting the Colonial Territories of the various countries represented at Strasbourg.
I do not accept the pessimism of my right hon. Friend. I believe he made a refreshing speech, a very fine debating speech, but I disagree with him. It is all very well to say that we should not think of ourselves as being a continental Power, but we are a continental Power in the sense that we have got to play our part in Europe. I recognise that we are the leaders of a great Commonwealth, but if British leadership is not felt on the Continent of Europe in the years to come, then leadership will come from another source.
That is what I am afraid of. If we remain apathetic or apart from Europe or hostile to the Council of Europe, if we become hostile to new organisations that are created let us make no mistake—another Power will emerge in Europe to give that leadership. After all, there is Germany now being rebuilt.


It might not be Germany, but it might well be the Soviet Union, seeking to pursue her aims in Europe on her own lines.
I want British influence in Europe. I believe that British influence is essential, and, in that sense, I hope that we shall not take a negative view. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper will look at this matter again, because, after all, he will remember that at our annual conference—if I may introduce a party note—we agreed in "Challenge to Britain" to give every support to the new Europe which is now emerging. I am sorry that I myself in my humble way did not give this support earlier. I am suggesting not that we should sell our sovereignty, but merely that we should give that support to the wider Europe which is emerging in various forms.
I, too, wish to deal with some of the problems that have been raised today. I agree very much with the suggestion of my right hon. Friend the Member for Blyth, which was pursued by the right hon. Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Maclay), that there is a danger of overlapping and duplication, and that many other organisations will be using their secretariat to do work which is already being carried out by the Council of Europe's Committees. I accept that that is something which must be looked at, and I support the idea of an inquiry. The Committee of Ministers should take up this subject, and, perhaps, there should be a full discussion at another session at Strasbourg on this very matter.
But I think there is something even more dangerous, and that is the danger, not of overlapping and duplication, but of fragmentation in Europe. Let us look at the European pattern. We have the Council of Europe, with its various committees, the Committee of Ministers, and the Consultative Assembly, which is already working as a forum, and, there again, I am glad that it is a forum.
I would rather have European statesmen meeting even in the Council of Europe than remaining behind their national frontiers sulking and preparing for war. I would rather have European politicians meeting in Europe and discussing common problems and sharing opinions, and, if compromises are reached, nobody loses by that. It is the strengthening of democratic processes of

discussion and democratic principles which we want on the Continent of Europe, and if Britain in that forum can give an example and leadership it will help European democracy.
But there is a danger. Here we have the Council of Europe, and we have the danger of other new organisations emerging. We have just been debating the European Coal and Steel Community. It has been my privilege, along with many other Members of Parliament, to visit Luxembourg and have a look at the Coal and Steel Community. I think it is a healthy organisation.
Despite the pessimism of many people, the Coal and Steel Community is working, whether we like it or not. Today we have decided to sign a form of association which is to last for a very long time. The Community is there, and it is a new type of organisation in Europe based on federal lines, quite different from the Council of Europe which we are debating now. It has a different parliamentary assembly from the Consultative Assembly at Strasbourg. It has its own committees and a very effective and able secretariat; it is working well in its field and, in future, its field may well be extended, perhaps to transport or to something else. At least, it is a healthy baby. Its existence creates a problem not only for the Council of Europe but for Europe itself.
We have also a new organisation for agriculture, which has been mentioned this evening. It is on different lines. It was created last year, out of a Paris conference. Now it is to have a Ministerial Committee assisted by a committee of deputies and another secretariat. As yet, this new organisation has not got under way, but our own Minister of Agriculture is to have his first meeting there next month. The existence of this new organisation for agriculture creates another problem for Europe.
A third organisation, the Western Union, is to emerge from the discussions on defence, arising out of the old Brussels Treaty Organisation. There again, that organisation is to have its own parliamentary control, its own parliamentary assembly and its own secretariat. Again, there is another organisation in Europe. I see that it was recently proposed at Strasbourg that we should have another organisation, an economic and social council, which no doubt would also have its control organisation and its secretariat.
So we can see in Europe in process a kind of fragmentation. I once used the term at Strasbourg "a dangerous centrifugal force," which could lead to very serious disintegration in Europe, dispersal of effort, overlapping, duplication and a weakening of that essential European unity in which we all believe, not only a political but an economic unity. That is what we must look at, and which I am certain the Council of Europe must consider. How can we counteract this dangerous fragmentation?
We adopted in the Council of Europe the Eden Plan, which proposed a form of association for the relationship to the Council of Europe of the Coal and Steel Community. That was a good example of an attempt to bring the new organisations together. We have to go further. At Strasbourg, the right hon. Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Maclay) attempted, in a memorandum which he submitted to the Council of Europe, to lay down arrangements for the relationship between the Council of Europe and the new Western Union Organisation. I will not go into the details, except to say that they were unique and that they are being considered carefully.
I am not sure what really was decided at London and Paris, when the Paris-London Agreements were discussed. Let me take the first White Paper, Cmd. 9289, dealing with the London Nine-Power conference which began in September, 1954. On page 6, it states:
The Brussels Council will make an Annual Report on its activities concerning the control of armaments to the Delegates of the Brussels Treaty Powers, to the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe.
Dealing with the conference at Paris in October, Command Paper 9304 lays down the following in Article V:
A new Article shall be inserted in the Treaty as Article IX: 'The Council of Western European Union shall make an annual report on its activities, and in particular concerning the control of armaments to an Assembly composed of representatives of the Brussels Treaty Powers, to the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe.'
That is not strong and effective enough.
I think that there must be greater contact between the new Western Union organisation when it comes into being and the Council of Europe. I myself have great sympathy with the French proposal for an arms pool. I do not know

what will be the effect of that proposal. I know that the British Government are hostile to it. But it may well be that the arms pool, run on the lines not of the Council of Europe or of Western Union, but of the Iron and Steel Community may provide the answer for another new type of organisation, effectively controlled.
Nevertheless, I believe that the Council of Europe should have close links with the new organisations. I believe, too, that the agricultural organisation, which I have mentioned, under O.E.E.C. should be associated with the Council of Europe. Indeed, the Council of Europe's agricultural committee, as is on record, has put to the Consultative Assembly that there should be close links between the committee of agriculture at Strasbourg and the new Ministerial Committee under O.E.E.C, and that there should be also links between the secretariat for agriculture at Strasbourg and the new secretariat which is to be created under the new O.E.E.C. organisation.
I would therefore ask the Minister, in replying, or even beyond this House, to bear these points in mind. If there is this dangerous fragmentation in Europe —if we allow these forces which I have mentioned, to get out of hand, if we have too much overlapping and too much duplication—there is a great danger that the cause of European unity will be weakened. It is important that we should be vigilant in this matter. I believe, too, that it is important that we should see to it that there is effective Parliamentary control over many of these organisations. That, I think, was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) in his opening speech.
It is essential that the experts who form the various secretariats, the various assemblies and committees should be watched. I do not say that in any bad sense; they are doing a very fine technical job, but it is essential that the decisions should be decisions of people with direct responsibility. That, I am certain, is important. It is all very well to say, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper said, that we go to Strasbourg as irresponsible persons. That really is not true. We are responsible, in the end, to our own British House of Commons, and I am partly responsible


to my own party in this matter. I am proud of that. I am partly responsible to my own constituents, and it is wrong to say that we go to Strasbourg as irresponsible persons.
We are responsible to public opinion here in our own country. We are partly, it is true, responsible to public opinion in Europe. That is why we have debates, and that is why it is necessary that we should exert democratic pressures and have democratic discussions, but, in the end, we should be able to impose control on these experts.
I am not ashamed of going to Strasbourg, and I am not afraid that I may be won over by my Continental friends to a point of view which may be opposite to the point of view of the right hon. Member for Belper. I have faith in my own principles, in my own Socialism, in my own country, and in my own democracy to safeguard me from any of the shocks that Strasbourg can offer, and I am certain that that is true of right hon. Gentlemen opposite as well. So let us remember that Strasbourg is an important forum for political and democratic discussions, and it should be vigilant and watchful over these new organisations which have been created.
There are many ways to achieve European unity. I shall not resurrect the old argument of federalism against the intergovernmental approach. In Europe there are many ways to achieve this unity and many processes are unfolding. The Coal and Steel Community has been successful. Strasbourg is a kind of forum; the new agricultural organisation under O.E.E.C. will be another kind. The new flexible arrangements which are there may have a certain strength and may have a certain weakness, but I believe that in the end, slowly and gradually, a greater unity will be reached, but it will only be reached if we, the British people, are not indifferent to what is happening on the Continent.
We must have a faith and a belief in what is happening. I am not ashamed to say that my constituents are not indifferent to this matter. The right hon. Member for Renfrew, West spoke about university audiences. I detected a note of pessimism there. In discussing this with miners and steel workers, ordinary men and women, good citizens, I find that they are interested in these matters and in the

shape of the new Europe. After all, many of them were involved as soldiers in Europe. They do not want to be involved in another Europe of that kind but in a peaceful Europe.
I would say again to my friends—and strongly—"Let us not be indifferent. Let us give that essential leadership. Let us not spit upon these men, our Continental friends whom we know at Strasbourg, who are seeking to build this new organisation." Many of them risked their lives in the Resistance movement, and many of them resisted bravely Nazism and the Nazi-Fascist dictatorial creed in the war years. Many of those are the people we meet at Strasbourg. They are the men and women who are trying to build a new Europe which will be peaceful and strong. In that sense, I wish them every success.

8.42 p.m.

Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: I think that everyone this evening agrees that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) is thoroughly out of date. I can only assume that he has now gone out of the Chamber to brush up his acquaintance with the handbook "Challenge to Britain" and will come back to apologise.
I am sure that the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart), whose eloquence inspired us all, will forgive me if I do not follow him in the grand things he said. I do not think that what he said was any less real than the things which the right hon. Gentleman for Belper thought to be the only real things. For some reason which I could not understand, the right hon. Gentleman thought that only financial and economic matters were real and that the things of the spirit of which the hon. Member spoke are in some sense unreal. I therefore agree with the hon. Member for Workington and not with his right hon. Friend.
I want to mention a small, short, but rather nagging point, and I hope that the House will not think that my enthusiasm for the Consultative Assembly is any the less because this point, though small, is rather critical. One of the great merits of our meetings in committee and subcommittee at Strasbourg is that from time to time there are joint meetings of Committees of the Assembly; that is to say, of


the Parliamentarians and the experts who are the representatives of the Ministers.
In the case of rather technical subjects that is particularly valuable. For example, I am on a committee that deals with the very important, though not very dramatic, subject of the reciprocal treatment of nationals. There we try to persuade the foreigner one way, and the foreigner tries to persuade us that some of our rules and regulations relating to foreigners trying to work here could perhaps be modified, and that we might be able to reach sensible agreement between the fifteen nations of Europe on that sort of thing. That is, I submit, real work if ever there was.
A constitutional rule has been laid down somewhere in the British Governmental machine that British experts may not meet with us at Strasbourg and so, when we reach Strasbourg as Parliamentarians and delegates, we find that there are no British experts. There are Dutch, German and Italian experts on one side of the table, and Dutch, German and Italian Parliamentarians on the other; and there are British Parliamentarians—but no British civil servants. For some reason it is thought to be unconstitutional that the Assembly should have the benefit of the advice of British civil servants.
Where this constitutional principle comes from I have never discovered. It certainly does not come from any of the books on constitutional law or history which I have ever read. Indeed, in some cases—for instance, in the case of the Committee on Cultural Affairs—it is relaxed, so it cannot be very wicked if an exception of that kind is made. I should not have thought that my hon. and cultural Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis), who sits on the Committee for Cultural Affairs, was in any way embarrassed by the presence of British civil servants as experts at such joint meetings, and I do not think I should be embarrassed, nor would the British bureaucrat be embarrassed, if, on the Committee for the Reciprocal Treatment of Nationals, we had his invaluable help.
In many cases, this difficulty means that the British case goes by default. Clearly, the British representative on that committee and on other similar committees cannot know all the technical objections

which may exist—and they may be quite good objections—to the suggestions which delegates from other countries make.
I remember that at the last meeting I had very much to guess what the British case had been on certain points. I am sure we had a good case, but we seemed to be in a minority; we seemed to be reactionary, as it were, to be holding out for some old rules, the reason for which I did not know. I should very much have liked to know the reason and I should have liked the assistance of British experts. But no; a strange rule has been laid down at some level in the Civil Service—and I do not know what level—that the British expert would somehow be contaminated by my presence, or vice versa.
It may well be that in the case of very hotly disputed, immediately political subjects—although I would argue to the contrary—there is some constitutional objection to British civil servants and British Members of Parliament meeting together in a foreign town; although what it can be I do not know. But on a matter of legal or technical importance—such as the reciprocal treatment of nationals or the many other subjects which do not get into the headlines but which are of great value and are discussed in these committees of the Council of Europe—I cannot for the life of me understand what the objection is.
I ask my hon. Friend the Joint Undersecretary of State to look at this rule again, because it seems to me that it is put there to guard against imaginary dangers. I ask him to believe that it impedes not merely the work of the Council of Europe but also the effective presentation of the British case in these committees, and that should not be allowed.
In conclusion, in a few sentences, I want to add my small voice to commend the work which has recently been done in the Council of Europe. I do not believe that people in this country or even hon. Members in the House altogether appreciate the importance in Continental opinion of keeping a Parliamentary check on the international bureaucrat. When the right hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) was listing the duplications in the various international bodies, I could not help thinking that these very duplications, in each


case the second of the two bodies being the Council of Europe, were a very good justification for the Council of Europe.
We know these international civil servants and trust them very largely. We may know them and trust them—they may be the best people in the world—but, nevertheless, their power is very great. Unless a Parliamentary body is watching them—only an international Parliamentary body can watch international bureaucrats—I fear that they may become the masters, the managerial revolutionaries, the big brothers of the modern world instead of its servants. I therefore believe that in its consultative capacity the Council of Europe plays a very important part and one which this country will increasingly recognise.

8.51 p.m.

Mr. James H. Hoy: I wish to say a few words as one who attended the Consultative Assembly at Strasbourg for two or three years. I am not frightened of the bureaucrats, national or international, in the same way as the hon. Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke). I have found them at all times very helpful. It is true as of all employees that one has to look after them. We have to see that they carry out the policies laid down by their Governments, but one should not treat them in this respect as a class of people seeking to impose their ways and their personal feelings on unwilling Governments. They are the instruments of their Governments, carrying out what their Governments ask them to do.
Some things have been said about the Council of Europe, from both sides, which in my view are very true. My right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown), if he did nothing else, helped to enliven the debate by putting a point of view held by many people inside and outside this House. In my opinion, he went a little too far, because I support the Council of Europe. I think one of the failings of the Council of Europe was that it got off to a very bad start. Following the war, people who had been our comrades in the war on the Continent were anxious to create something which would prevent another world war taking place. They were in a great hurry to carry the job through. Let it be said for Britain that Britain had not made up her mind what part she was to play in the new Europe. The Government were rather hesitant because of their commitments to

the Commonwealth and other associations and so were a little backward in making any constructive proposals.
What my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper said about the then Opposition using the situation for purely party political purposes had a great deal of truth in it. As the House has been reminded today by my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton), I remember the action of the present Minister of Housing and Local Government during the debates on the Schuman Plan. We remember very well the Macmillan-Eccles proposals at the Council of Europe. They gave some hope to Continental Europeans who, apparently thought they were being deserted by British Europeans. They were not helped by the motion which was moved by the Prime Minister—referred to today by my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper—about the creation of a European Army with a European Minister of Defence. That was described some time later by another right hon. Gentleman as an irrevocable decision. One cannot play about with the word "irrevocable"; it means only what it says.
Naturally when the right hon. Gentlemen became the Government of this country, the Europeans expected that Government to carry out the resolutions for which they had been responsible at Strasbourg. After they became the Government they decided they could not go quite so far as they had when they were the Opposition. Continentals felt that their case had been weakened. Anyone who was at Strasbourg at that time will remember that, instead of seeking to do something to help Europe, there was the struggle between federalists and functionalists going on all the time. Because of this the Council itself was doing very little work.
A second weakness is the number of resolutions submitted by members. Anybody who has been to a Council meeting at Strasbourg, if it has not improved in the last year or two, will know that delegates were snowed under with papers which it was impossible to read or understand. That was one of the great drawbacks to the organisation. Indeed, so many motions were brought before the Council that in its concluding stages we used to pass a resolution a


minute on all sorts of subjects, from European defence to agriculture and fisheries. They were all pushed through rapidly, and, obviously, people outside the organisation could not have great respect for that kind of thing.
But despite these difficulties, I feel that the Council has a part to play. At the time I was attending there my party in this House formed the Government but they were not very constructive in their efforts when it came to the Consultative Assembly. They were always waiting to find out what other people's proposals were before making any constructive proposals of their own.
Then a big change took place. I remember it well, for it was when my right hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) tabled his motion on full employment and industry in Europe. A great debate ensued, and we had the opinions of European countries about the problems which they faced in these matters. There was a smaller occasion which I recall when the Assembly was asked by many Representatives, including myself, to deal with the whole question of over-fishing in the North Sea, something which was of special importance to the countries of Europe. Let it be said that where other organisations had failed to get ratification, through exposure on that occasion the Council of Europe achieved agreement and those countries which up to that time had not ratified the convention did so, so that something of considerable help to Europe was achieved.
During the time I attended the Council of Europe I did not take part in many debates. I did participate in the economic debate arid on the question of fisheries, which I have just mentioned, because the motion was in my name. But I thought that one of the things that might be done in the Council of Europe was to overhaul its procedure and to see whether, out of the morass in which we found ourselves, we could not so streamline matters that we would be able to carry out work in a much more effective manner and in a way which would gain us greater respect outside the Council.
As rapporteur of a committee, I had the privilege of inviting delegates from Europe to this building, and here, for three days, we met in a very happy atmosphere.

I am certain that at the end of the day an improvement was made in the procedural rules, and we did something towards perfecting the machine which provides a forum for the people of Europe.
Altogether, I am not depressed by the difficulties. I know that in its initial stages the Council had to cope with growing pains. But I am certain that an organisation of this kind, which provides a forum for the free peoples of Europe to meet to discuss their difficulties and to find solutions for them, is something which should have the wholehearted support of this House. I am sure that even my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper, when he casts his mind back, will think of some good things the Council has done. I would give it my wholehearted support to make it an even greater success in future, because I believe that it has an important part to play in unifying the people of Europe who are interested in the democratic way of life.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Bell: We should be grateful to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) for giving us someone to disagree with in this debate. The right hon. Gentleman blew in, blew us up, and blew out. That performance had its value, because it is possible for those who are associated with an organisation like the Council of Europe to become a little pot-bound inside it. These international organisations sometimes have artificial atmospheres of which we should beware and occasionally be warned.
But the picture which the right hon. Gentleman drew of the Council of Europe was nothing better than a caricature. I could not understand some of his criticisms. Sometimes the right hon. Gentleman seemed to be saying that it was an irresponsible body because all the people who went there were back benchers responsible to no one; though even on that I would say that back benchers at Strasbourg are just as much responsible, and in just the same way, as they are when they speak in this House. Then at other times the right hon. Gentleman seemed to be regretting Strasbourg because it took there people who held Ministerial rank and might commit their government, more especially the British Government, in some inadvertent way.
As hon. Members well know, the Council of Europe consists of two parts, though we commonly concentrate our attention on only one. It consists of a Committee of Ministers composed of the Foreign Secretary of each of the 15 member States, and of a Consultative Assembly containing 132 Parliamentary representatives drawn in varying proportions from the 15 member States. During the two years I have attended the meetings of the Consultative Assembly, a not inconsiderable proportion of its 132representatives have been Ministers in various European governments. The practice of sending Ministers as representatives to that Assembly is much more common among the Continental States than it is with the United Kingdom, though even we have two Ministers among our 18 representatives there at the present time.
It is wrong to suggest that the Council of Europe either has been or ought to be merely a debating forum. If it has been possible to persuade the Consultative Assembly and then the Committee of Ministers about any proposition, we have done virtually what we wanted so to do; because if a resolution is passed by the Consultative Assembly, then goes to the Committee of Ministers and is accepted by them, the Governments of the 15 member countries—not just the back-bench Parliamentarians—have, through their responsible Foreign Minister, agreed to that proposition and, in practice, proposals which have gone through that procedure come into force.
The range of matters dealt with at Strasbourg is vast. We had a debate earlier today about the European Coal and Steel Community. That idea was launched at Strasbourg by M. Schuman. It was not merely conceived at Strasbourg; it was developed there. It is no exaggeration to say—in fact, it is a trite truth—that it would never have come into being if the Council of Europe had not existed. The Coal and Steel Community is both logically and historically an offshoot of the Council. It is something on the very biggest scale which the Council has created.
What astonishes me when I consider that body is how much it has actually done in a life of less than 5½years. A good deal of money and talk has been poured into international organisations, but I wonder how many can show in 5½

years a record of achievement like that of the Council.
The right hon. Member for Belper distinguished the Council from Government-backed organisations. But it is, of course, a Government-backed organisation. It was set up by international Treaty—there is nothing unofficial about the Council—which has been formally ratified by the Parliaments of all the 15 member countries. It is in every sense an official organisation.
The Statute of the Council was passed in May, 1949, and the Council first met in August, 1949. Within a matter of months it had launched the Coal and Steel Community idea and very shortly afterwards brought it into force. Within a matter of months of its being set up, it had launched the idea of a European Army. The Pleven Plan, which later became the E.D.C., was conceived and developed at Strasbourg. It went through the machine at Strasbourg. It did not become effective, but ought we not to bear in mind how nearly it did become effective and what a tremendous conception it was? It was ratified by five of the six countries and defeated only by a majority in the Parliament of the sixth country. If last August the majority had been the other way in the last Parliament, what should we not now be saying about the Council of Europe and the achievements at Strasbourg? Whatever defects it may have had, the European Defence Community was a tremendous conception, and it would have been a tremendous step forward for the ideal of a united Europe, to which, I suppose, every hon. Member is devoted.
There are also lesser matters. It is easy to laugh at such things as the "green pool" for agriculture or what one of my noble Friends has called the "wooden bloc" for forestry, rather grandiose projects which are unlikely to reach fruition and which, I think, it would be against British interests to carry to fruition.
We cannot have an international organisation of 15 nations with differing traditions and very different outlooks without their putting up some red herrings. I hope I may be excused for that metaphor; I do not think that one can put up a red herring, but I am sure the House knows what I mean. However, there are very many other smaller projects


which have been useful and have come to fruition.
I am a member of the legal committee of the Council. It is continually bringing into effect useful reforms in European law which do not remain in the atmosphere of debate at Strasbourg but actually take effect and confer benefits, although they may not be dramatic or highly publicised, upon the people of the member States. Our sub-committee for the simplification of frontier formalities has had great success in getting rid of visas between the member States, carrying out an ideal which the late Mr. Ernest Bevin put before us. But, although I would immediately give to Mr. Bevin the credit for reviving that idea after the war, I am sure that his former colleagues opposite will agree that the Council of Europe at Strasbourg is the machinery which has carried it out.
The same committee is working on frontier formalities for motor cars, a question which includes some vexatious problems and a matter about which we all want to see progress made. There is also the simplification and unification of the law relating to the liability of innkeepers for the effects of travellers. That is not a highly dramatic subject, but it is very useful. It would be nice if one knew that in the 15 countries represented at Strasbourg there was uniformity in the law regulating a traveller and his luggage and the hotelkeeper. All these minor matters are being and can be dealt with at Strasbourg. There is the question of compulsory third-party insurance for motorists in all the 15 countries. How useful and important that would be. Such things comprise the daily activities of the legal committee and they can be done at Strasbourg better than anywhere else.
What are the alternatives to Strasbourg? They would be diplomatic or ordinary international conferences composed of negotiators for the various Governments. At Strasbourg we have Ministers and unofficial Members of Parliament. At Strasbourg a representative may make his case, and there are committees of experts—I use that word with due modesty. In the case of the legal committee there are lawyers who have experience derived from their practice and we have the advice of the Government legal experts.
I differ from my hon. Friend about whether such experts should take part in the committee debates. We can consult them and be briefed by them before debates. But I think that it would be a pity if British Members of Parliament were to engage in possibly acrimonious differences of opinion in a committee debate with British civil servants. That is my personal view. I would prefer to be briefed by them beforehand rather than to debate with them. But we have these facilities at Strasbourg. The matter then goes forward to the Assembly and the Committee of Ministers, and I have never known any of the proposals of the legal committee to be rejected.
In our national Parliaments representatives can take the next step of keeping up a constant agitation by putting Parliamentary Questions, moving Motions and exercising influence in various ways to make sure that the agreements arrived at at Strasbourg are ratified. As hon. Members know, it is one thing to get an international agreement and another to get it ratified. One of the most useful activities of the Council of Europe is to ginger up Governments to make sure they live up to the undertakings given in the Committee of Ministers.
I have mentioned only a few of the minor activities at Strasbourg of which I have personal knowledge. In my experience, it is not only a debating forum, but an extremely useful international instrument. My real answer to the right hon. Member for Belper is that his attitude to the Council of Europe must be wrong because, were we to adopt it, the European idea would be dead in a matter of months. We dare not let the European idea die because it would have to be replaced by something else, and I am quite sure that any replacement would be much less acceptable to me.
There are many bruised sensitivities in Europe. At the moment the nations are all bound together in an enthusiasm for a united Europe, harking back to the old ideal of the Holy Roman Empire. It is a conception which can guarantee the peace inside Europe, and which can make Europe an economically viable community. Above all, it is an ideal into which can be sublimated all the ancient combativeness of the different European communities. For those reasons we should nourish and cherish the Council of


Europe. It is our way of saying that we in Britain are behind Europe in its efforts to achieve unity.

9.15 p.m.

Mr. G. M. Thomson: I agree with many of the things which the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) has just said, but he has given expression to a confusion of outlook about the Council of Europe which is very much at the root of our debate tonight. He said that the Council should not simply be regarded as a forum, and he went on to give a number of instances where the Council has had very great influence in setting up new European institutions. The fact is that these institutions are set up by Governments, and not by the Council. The Consultative Assembly has a very great influence in creating the opinion which finally compels Governments to do these things, but it is the Governments which do it.
I want to draw attention to the fact that the setting up of the Western European Union presents the Council with quite a new situation. It raises the whole question of the future of the Council, and whether, indeed, it is to have a future. We are entering a new chapter in the affairs of European institutions. We have passed beyond the partisan chapter of the past. We have seen today the great amount of agreement which now exists across the Floor of the House. It is apparent that the federalist idea has now been defeated and will for some time be well in the background.
By what method shall we move forward? The E.C.S.C. has been set up and we are now to have Western European Union. The question is whether the Council is to regard these bodies as rivals, or whether it should establish for itself an integrating or co-ordinating rôle. I believe that the latter proposition offers the main hope, but if the Council is to do that job it must do it by providing a Parliamentary forum. The more international organisations that are set up, the more there are of the bewildering sets of initials that bedevil our political reading, the more necessary it is that these international bodies of Government officials and Ministers should have alongside them a forum where the back benchers of the various Parliaments of Europe can come together and bring to bear upon those Ministerial and official bodies an

informed public opinion. The stage which has now been reached with the proposed setting up of Western European Union provides an opportunity for the reconsideration of the machinery of the Council. A committee is now sitting investigating the secretarial services of the Council, and it might well extend its attention to the procedure of the Council.
During the short time I have been there it has become apparent to me that we all owe a very great debt to the painstaking and patient work which has been done by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) and the right hon. Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Maclay) in the Committee on General Affairs. Much of the work which they have to do there, however, is based upon the assumption that the Council is a legislative Parliamentary body, and they spend long hours seeking by great verbal ingenuity to get agreed resolutions covering points of view which are in fact widely different. It would be more effective if the Council were a forum in which the real differences of opinion were vigorously expressed, instead of concealed by such verbiage.
If my suggestion were adopted, these opinions would make a greater impact upon the Ministers of the various Governments. That is the future role that we should try to create for the Council. It should be a body to co-ordinate and integrate the various activities within Europe, a place where Parliamentarians can meet and, by using it as a real sounding board, bring informed pressure to bear upon their Ministers, and, at the same time, help to make an impact upon the public opinions of their respective countries.

9.20 p.m.

Mr. A. G. Bottomley: This has been a very interesting debate, with only one jarring note from my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown). We must not forget that he represents a point of view, but I think that in the course of my speech I shall be able to show him and those who support him that they are wrong.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Belper did say that at the Consultative Assembly he was an individual without any responsibility, but in fact he is a very responsible person. He has a


responsibility to this House of Commons. He was appointed by this House as a representative and of course he has a responsibility to his constituents.
I was rather disappointed to hear the right hon. Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Maclay) say that in his opinion our constituents were not interested in the Council of Europe. I am bound to say, speaking for the constituency which I represent, that the people there are interested. Perhaps that is because of the existence of the Royal Dockyard, which means that they have wide overseas connections. Next Sunday I am attending a Labour Party conference, and I know that if I do not speak of the work of the Consultative Assembly those there will be extremely disappointed.
As far as this debate is concerned, all of us have a responsibility, because, if anything, the Council of Europe was created in this Parliament, and when I say this Parliament I mean this House. Was it not during the war years, when Europe knew little of what was in store for it, that the then Prime Minister made a broadcast in 1943 in the course of which he said that we must have a world organisation and that one of the main pillars of that organisation must be the Council of Europe?
It is true that from 1945 to 1947 little was done about creating the Council of Europe, but there were very good reasons for it. We were hoping to secure international peace and security. We were aware that our Soviet allies were nervous and afraid of the Western bloc, and we did all we could to make it possible for the Soviet Union to come into this united endeavour to secure peace and security. It was not until we saw, by subsequent actions, that that would be difficult that we went ahead in a different direction, and a warning note was sounded by the then Foreign Secretary, the late Mr. Ernest Bevin, who managed to secure the Dunkirk Treaty, which was the forerunner of a good deal of European co-operation.
We know that subsequently we followed that up, in January, 1948, by Mr. Bevin saying that the free nations of the Western world must now draw more closely together. It would be wrong if I gave the impression that he wanted the Consultative Assembly. He was a practical person and took the view that it would be

much better first to create a European civil service, and, with that end in view, there were formed the Brussels Treaty Organisation and the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation. Mr. Bevin strongly took the view that if we got these organisations working, with civil servants knowing their jobs building up these institutions, we could bring about a Parliamentary institution with some measure of control.
However, we now have the Council of Europe in being. There are many who consider it a waste of time; there are others who expect too much of it. I think we shall do well to remember that, of all international organisations today, this is the only one in which Parliamentarians other than Ministers meet to discuss and debate matters. I should like to say—and I will not pursue the matter, because it would be out of order—that I regret that the present Government are not continuing what the last Government did in sending Parliamentarians to the United Nations. The Council of Europe is the only place where Parliamentarians can meet together. Even if it did nothing but meet to exchange ideas, I still think that it would serve a useful purpose. But it does much more than that.
As has been said already, there was fruitless discussion over a very considerable period between those who favoured the federation of Europe and those who took the functional view on the method of development for the Council. Those days have gone, and I think it can be proved that we are now getting down to useful work. Indeed, that was thought by the last Prime Minister of France. M. Mendès-France thought it necessary and valuable enough for him to address the Assembly of the Council of Europe upon the international situation, and at that same sitting the Belgian Foreign Minister also spoke. I suggest that, if eminent statesmen of that kind find it worth while to come to the Assembly, it is an indication that it is being taken much more seriously today than in the past.
Much has been said, and particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Peart), about the way that the Council of Europe has dealt with agricultural matters, which has brought confidence to the European communities. It deserves credit for that. Other hon.


Members gave illustrations of the work done in its respective committees.
Let us not forget that, as an Assembly, we have created a Commission of Human Rights. Had there been a Commission for Human rights in Europe before the war, and all the nations had been committed to freedom of thought, freedom of speech and to all those standards in which we believe, there would, I think, have been a climate of public opinion which have resisted the march of totalitarian rule. I put it no higher than that. Not only have we the Commission of Human Rights, but also the cultural conventions. I will not go into these except to say that useful work has been accomplished.
I wish to speak about some of the work with which I have been familiar. I was vice-chairman of the Committee on Social Questions. I was not aware, as I am sure many other hon. Members were not, that throughout Western Europe there are 119 social security schemes in 15 countries and 28 bi-lateral or multilateral agreements covering those schemes. We know from experience of our own party conflicts that it is difficult enough to standardise social security legislation in this country. But this has not deterred the European Parliamentarians. They have gone ahead, and now have a committee of experts examining the matter, and, obviously, because of what was said by my right hon. Friend and others, they have been very careful to avoid overlapping.
It is recognised that the International Labour Organisation does much work in this field, and the Committee on Social Questions saw to it that the I.L.O. was given the job of asking member Governments the maximum standards of social security which they were prepared to adopt. It is true that this kind of work then began to develop into what my hon. Friend said was the likelihood of another organisation, the social council.
Although many were prepared to go ahead with that, there were others who took an opposite view, and not only by speech. Indeed, to make absolutely certain that my own views were known, I put in writing my objections to the creation of a social council. That council is not in being, and is not likely to be. This is an indication that if Parliamentarians who go there do the job properly they can

influence the Assembly in the right direction.
To refer to the Committee on Economic Questions, of which I happen to be the raporteur at the present time, it is true that the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, responsible to the Ministers as such, has an opportunity of ventilating its report to the Assembly of the Council of Europe. Were it left there, I would agree that a justifiable criticism could be made that not enough time was given to it. Since I have been the raporteur, we have seen to it that O.E.E.C. experts have come to the Committee, where we have questioned them and deliberated with them at length in order to find out more about their report. It may be a very useful thing to pinpoint some of these committee recommendations for discussion in the main Assembly.
At the last session of the Council of Europe we had a most useful discussion on East—West trade. Some of us had the opportunity of pointing out to Western European nations that they might follow the standards that we have adopted. It was an opportunity to show that we had played the game. In Paris, we had restricted the transfer of particular goods to the Soviet Union, and we were able to show why it had to be done. In the case of East—West trade, we showed Western European nations something that was worth developing. The propositions that we put up there are still being seriously considered as a means of extending trade.
As the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Smithers) has said, we also had a very useful discussion on the convertibility of currency. There was a unanimous decision by the Assembly which carried some weight, and which must have given serious thought to the Ministers when they met to discuss the convertibility of currency. It is on record that the Council of Europe itself suggested that a multilateral system of payments should be established, to include the inter-convertibility of European currency. Those who were on that committee—I was not—can claim some credit for having been the forerunners in creating the European Payments Union, which has done such useful work in recent years.
There have been discussions in that committee upon full employment. The


Governments in the Council of Europe are called upon to submit annual reports on employment, prices and national incomes. All this kind of information, coming into the hands of Parliamentarians throughout Europe, means that they are provided with opportunities to add to their knowledge in their various Parliaments, in order to overcome the evils of unemployment that used to exist so much before the war. If this were a political speech I could say more about the prospects for the future, and discuss the economic policies of the Government compared with those which we on this side would follow, but it is not the time to do so.
The organisation of agricultural markets has been referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Workington. It is interesting to note that there was a conference of Ministers, at which a proposition made by one of my hon. Friends and his supporters was given most careful consideration. We have also discussed customs and tariff barriers. Remember that we did not want overlapping, having regard to what some of us had experienced in other international organisations. That kind of discussion and scheme was followed on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. We discussed in detail what we like to call "The Council of Europe Plan." In reports that have been published this month we see that there has been a Convention on Patents, whereby the formalities required when patent applications are published have been adopted and completed in Western European nations.
I should like, in the few minutes still at my disposal, to develop a pet theme of mine, but something which is so important that I must ventilate my view on it in the House again. As delegates to the Council of Europe we have a right not only to express our views there but to take the opportunity, in our own Parliaments, of urging our Government to take action upon things which we think are of vital importance.
I have taken a very great interest in Asia. A good many of us who have had an opportunity of taking a more energetic and active interest in that part of the world will agree that we might not be faced with the struggles that are going on at present in that part of the world

if we had applied our minds to the matter. That is true now of Africa. We shall find in due time that we shall have to spend, in preparation for a struggle by warlike methods, much more of our wealth than we might otherwise, unless we consider the matter now in a much more peaceful manner.
The Government ought to consider the Strasbourg Plan, which we sent to the Government and to the Commonwealth Governments. I do not subscribe entirely to the Strasbourg Plan, but I pay credit to those who conceived the idea in the past. Several parts of it do not claim my support, but I will not go into that aspect of the matter now. It is not the time to do so, and time would not permit, even if I wanted to do so, but we have to look at this matter in a much more serious way than we appear to be doing at the moment. If the Joint Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs will look at the resolution which the Committee of Ministers, of which his senior colleague is a member, discussed at its last meeting, he will see that there was a special report of O.E.E.C. on the Strasbourg Plan, which was submitted to the Committee of Ministers, together with a motion which I myself had presented to the Assembly, and which it was agreed should go back to the Committee of Ministers.
I hope I shall not weary the House if I read the motion, because it is important that the Minister should know what I am asking him to urge the Government to support at the Committee of Ministers. The motion which I submitted said:
The Assembly,
Believing that the economic advancement of both Africa and Europe is a task of the utmost urgency that can be achieved only by the closest co-operation of the two continents;
Noting the various proposals that have been made on the subject both elsewhere and in this Assembly;
Stressing that all measures taken must be in accordance with the wishes of the peoples most directly concerned;
Recommends that the Committee of Ministers convene a series of conferences in Strasbourg under the auspices of the Council of Europe in which the elected representatives of the peoples of Africa and representatives of European countries be invited to study the best ways and means for the co-operative development of their countries.
It will be noted that I say "a series of conferences." That is to make it pos-


sible for different parts of Africa to come in with the complementary parts, so that there may be more uniformity and some development possible, without trying to link those parts not so developed as ours, bearing in mind that a good many have self-government now, and self-governing territories ought to have the same opportunity of meeting on equal terms with the countries which are already members of the Council of Europe.
I believe that if this can be done, then the Government will be giving an added impetus to the work of the Council of Europe, and making it possible for those of us who serve in the Assembly to see whether we cannot widen the narrow limits laid down by the recommendations concerning ourselves in trying to serve the Africans—I put the emphasis there first —and make it possible for all of us to have greater consultation than might otherwise be the case.
This debate has been extremely useful. It is a pity that we do not have an opportunity of discussing the affairs of the Council of Europe more often. I believe that we should use the opportunity when it is provided, not only to review some of the work which has been done, and not only to recognise that it is an institution which has come to stay, but to recognise that if we do not play our parts, then others may. I think that British influence is really necessary and useful not only for ourselves but for Europe as a whole. I believe that we can, by linking ourselves with Africa, create a situation in which we can truly say that the Assembly is not only a parliamentary forum but a place where extremely useful work has been done.

9.39 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Lord John Hope): In commencing what is for me the first task of its kind, I would say to the House that I consider myself fortunate in being able to wind up a debate on a subject of which I have always been, since I first came into contact with it, particularly fond.
I thought that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) who opened the debate—and it was his second innings of the day—made a speech of very great interest. I have the pleasantest

memories of his comradeship in days that are fairly far behind us, when he and I together watched the formation of what was intended to be a European political community, had E.D.C. come into being. I mention that because something he said about the Articles of Association with the Schuman Pool touched a chord in my memory, as I think it must have done in his. He spoke of those Articles as a perfect example of their kind. I believe they are, but I could not help thinking that that part of that embryo plan—which never came into being—which concerns the articles of association which this country would have had with a European political community were extremely practical and good, in exactly the same way as the right hon. Gentleman was struck by the Schuman Agreement today. But that is past history.
The right hon. Gentleman was much more optimistic about the state of health of the Council of Europe today than he was when he last addressed the House on the subject. One rejoices to see that. He reminded the House today that on that occasion he had said that there was a danger of the Council of Europe dying. He then told my right hon. Friend who was then Under-Secretary that the Council of Europe was dying before his very eyes. Today, as I say, he feels more optimistic, and I think that those who then thought like him now share his increased optimism. There are reasons for it.
May I now go through the points which were made and the questions which were asked before coming, in conclusion, to a proposition which I want to leave with the House? The right hon. Gentleman noted first how much less contentious had become the argument about supra-nationality. That is absolutely accurate. I think, with him and others, that that is a very healthy sign. I believe, further, that the argument was always very largely, though not entirely, false, to this extent. However much we may have got upon our high horses about the idea of supra-nationality, I think we have all come to realise that, without losing our ultimate sovereignty as a nation, there are occasions when we have to put what seem to be our short-term nationalist advantage into the pool for the long-term communal advantage—which is also our own. Supranationality and the retention of sovereignty are not by any means alto-


gether mutually exclusive when it comes to practical suggestions.
The right hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members mentioned the difficulty of overlapping. The right hon. Gentleman himself gave us a most imposing list, under various headings, of what he claimed to be this overlapping. There is, of course, bound to be a certain amount of overlapping in this kind of affair, but it is so often the way one looks at a thing and describes it which affects one's strength of feeling. I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that if, instead of using this rather harsh word "overlapping" too much, he gradually infiltrates into his vocabulary the word "dovetailing" it might meet the case. Sometimes, of course, there is overlapping, but on other occasions I prefer this constuctive and peaceful word "dovetailing," which is precisely what goes on in many of these organisations.
The right hon. Gentleman asked for an inquiry to be instituted by the Committee of Ministers, and I believe the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) also asked for that. I do not think it would serve any purpose. There is no question but that these different agencies must go on and we, as members of the Assembly of the Council of Europe, must have our own links with them which we want to watch.

Mr. Peart: The Committee on Cultural and Scientific Questions of die Council of Europe is meeting U.N.E.S.C.O. to deal with this very subject.

Lord John Hope: It will be most interesting to see what conclusion they reach.
The right hon. Gentleman asked whether annual reports were the best way of applying what he called the searchlight and suggested an interim report on specific matters as a substitute. That is a matter of opinion, but I think that the annual report is the better of the two vehicles and that it is better to have the whole report so that people can discuss it rather than that somebody—I do not know who—should choose which bits and pieces in an interim report will be discussed. There would be bound to be complaints that this, that or the other inconvenient piece of information had been

left out. It is far better to have it in the light of day in toto.

Mr. Robens: I wanted us to do both.

Lord John Hope: The right hon. Gentleman did not say that, but it brings his case nearer to mine, although it does not bring it quite all the way.
He mentioned the thorny problem of an international secretariat. That is very much on the tapis at the moment, and the Committee of Ministers has instructed the secretariat of the Council of Europe to undertake a comprehensive study of the question in conjunction with other European organisations. These other organisations have agreed to participate, and study is proceeding. I hope that news will encourage the right hon. Gentleman.
I agree that we do not want any prejudices in terms of childish nationalism to intrude on the personnel question here. On the other hand I think he would agree that we want a balance. It would be silly and unfortunate to stand firm over an unsuitable appointee but if we can get a balance in terms of the different nations, that would be the ideal at which to aim.
The right hon. Member and the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) both touched upon the question of Western European Union. It would be wrong at this stage for me to go into any detail about an organisation which has not yet come into being but I cannot let this occasion pass without adding my tribute to those which have been paid to my right hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Maclay) for the extremely helpful and businesslike way in-which he led the onslaught on this problem at the Council of Europe recently.
I want to make it plain to one hon. Member—I think the hon. Member for Dundee, East—that this Western European Union is intended, if it comes into being, to have its own Assembly. There is no doubt whatever that that is intended. As for the secretariat, there will be as great an integration as we can possibly get with that of the Council of Europe.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West drew attention to the public interest in this country in what is taking place in Europe. I agree very much with him and with those right hon. and hon. Members who said that there is the interest if we can find the right audience.


I believe the reason for which there is not great public interest is largely because of the attitude of the Press—and they are quite entitled to it—for, like some critical politicians, some of them hate it and others think it is a bore. In those circumstances, we cannot expect what we might call universal coverage of its meetings.
The right hon. Member suspected—very gently, but nevertheless firmly—that the Foreign Office looks upon some of the matters in connection with the Council of Europe as a bit of a nuisance. I can assure him from personal experience that that is not so. What in fact is the case is that those who serve in the Foreign Office always put their backs into the question of the Council of Europe and do their very best to make it a going concern so that we Ministers can do our best when the time comes. I want to make the point quite firmly that there is nothing but co-operation in the Foreign Office over the Council of Europe.
I come to the speech of the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown). It has been so thoroughly analysed from various quarters of the House that I think there is very little more in addition that I want to say, except that I could have hardly disagreed with it more.

Mr. G. Brown: Hear hear. Most encouraging.

Lord John Hope: I did not like it very much in the first part and, when the right hon. Member said that Ministers who go to the Council of Europe are bored——

Mr. Brown: I did not say that.

Lord John Hope: I beg pardon, what the right hon. Member said was that he thought Ministers should not go to the Council of Europe as they are subject to pressures and are troublesome.

Mr. Brown: Let the hon. Gentleman answer what I said. I said I thought Ministers from this country should not go to the Council of Europe because there are no Ministers there from other countries. They make bargains with people, get pushed off the point and make concessions, thinking that they are dealing with other people who can commit their Government at home. Then we find that this country has been committed whilst no one else has.

Lord John Hope: I do hope I do not take too much on myself when I say that I do not personally suffer any of those illusions when I go there, nor have my colleagues who have been there before me. I think the right hon. Member is unduly pessimistic about that. So long as I misheard his suspected accusations that we were troublesome when we go there, I am much happier about his speech altogether. The right hon. Member stressed that in his opinion we are not a Continental Power. He said we tend to think too much in the European way when we are at Strasbourg. I think that claim was effectively answered by the hon. Member for Workington. I wonder very much whether that is a practical way of looking at things in these days of quick and short communications. Of course we are a Commonwealth Power, of course we are an island Power and of course we have close links with the United States of America, but I think it is a mistake to suppose that we are not also a European Power at the same time.

Mr. Brown: Continental?

Lord John Hope: Continental if one likes; it is the same thing to me, as there is only a tiny puddle between ourselves and the Continent.
My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Mr. Smithers) asked about further economic integration in Europe and economic studies to be undertaken. I imagine he wanted steps in that regard to be speeded up. He knows as well as I do—he said so in his speech—that a great deal has already been done. I think the way in which this part of the business is going on is about right, although there is no complacency intended in that observation.
The hon. Member for Workington spoke of a new agricultural organisation. It is not a question of a new agricultural organisation, tout it is a Ministerial Committee of O.E.E.C. which has been established. Because we thought it essential that agricultural questions should be treated within the framework of European economy as a whole we opposed the establishment of a separate organisation and urged that the work begun by the Conference should be done by O.E.E.C.
My hon. Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) was irked by the fact that civil servants, apparently, are not allowed to appear before the committees of the Council of Europe. He asked whether it was true that they were allowed now to appear before the committee dealing with cultural matters, and whether that was an exception. The answer to both those questions is "Yes"; they are allowed, and it is an exception. This whole question is obviously a vexed one. The status of the British civil servant is not the same as that of the European civil servant. We are brought up on the principle of Ministerial responsibility, and that clearly must weigh heavily in the balance. Nevertheless, if and when the international civil service is formed, then naturally this would not apply because civil servants from this country would join and would abide by the rules of the international body.
The hon. Member for Leith (Mr. Hoy) complained that there was far too much paper in the Council of Europe. Certainly there is, but I think that is the complaint of every politician in every country. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rochester and Chatham (Mr. Bottomley) asked me to say something encouraging about the conferences, which he has in mind. I am afraid without going further into it now that I cannot give him much hope. We feel these conferences in this particular way are not going to be very much help.
May I say this in conclusion? There is much that the Council of Europe does which is unsung but which is extremely helpful. Its real strength lies in the fact —and others have said the same thing in much the same way tonight—that this is the only political assembly which is truly European. Here the delegates of 250 million Europeans have developed a collective sense of proportion. I believe that the crises in the cold war of nerves all over the world in the last few years have proved the Assembly beyond doubt, and while courage lately has been failing

in some quarters, the Assembly has declared with unshaken consistency and by an overwhelming majority its conviction that the way to security and peace lies in standing firm on the lines of a European unit and in immediate ratification of the Paris Agreements.
I would remind the House in that connection that many of these delegates and certainly the millions that they represent know what it is to be occupied by a conqueror. We cannot help thinking that the resolutions which have been passed lately by these Parliamentarians on the lines which I have just mentioned are worth far more than the frothy blusterings of those who give contrary advice. I am sorry that there was a most unhappy article written in the contrary sense in "Le Monde" last week by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan). I still prefer the resolutions which all these people have agreed to pass because they have lived and worked through the shadows for many years.
I am sure that the private side cannot be over-emphasised, the valuable contacts which we Parliamentarians can make with Parliamentarians from all over Europe. One of the things we have managed to do in this House of Commons is to enable the Parliamentarians on the Continent to understand the British. It is not an easy thing to do, but I am quite certain that there has been a service performed in this respect.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Blyth, who opened the debate, said that the influence of the Council is its weapon. That is so because it has no legislative power. But influence can be decisive, and I believe—and I have tried to give examples—that the influence of the Council of Europe is for good. May it flourish.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. P. G. T. Buchan-Hepburn): I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

PURCHASE TAX

10.0 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Jay: I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Purchase Tax (No. 2) Order, 1955 (S.I., 1955, No. 101), dated 19th January, 1955, a copy of which was laid before this House on 21st January, be annulled.
This is a rather peculiar Order which the Government have put before the House tonight. We are praying against it not because we object to the reductions in tax which the Government are proposing, but because we wish to give the Financial Secretary an opportunity to explain briefly why he is carrying out these rather meagre cuts in the Purchase Tax and no others.
This Order cuts the Purchase Tax on fur coats, on paper serviettes and one or two other paper objects, and on mops. We would like the Financial Secretary to explain why he has made this peculiar selection. The Order ranges from mink to mops, but leaves out almost everything in between. It seems to us a peculiar and a misguided selection. We would have preferred to see the Government, at this stage, take an entire range of household necessities out of the range of Purchase Tax altogether.
I am sure the hon. Gentleman realises that there is large scope for such a change. He is still levying the tax on such things as soap, cutlery, linoleum, furniture, brushes, combs, sponges and all kinds of other things that could be quoted. None of those is by any stretch of the imagination a luxury object and the hon. Gentleman could make, if he wished, a modest contribution to keeping down the cost of living by taking off the tax, or at least cutting it, on such objects.
I have never understood why the present Government have departed from the policy which the Labour Government were carrying out in the Budgets up to and including that of 1951, of exempting each year a range of household necessities from Purchase Tax. With the exception of mops, virtually none has been exempted from the tax over these last three years. I would submit two or three reasons to the Financial Secretary why he might give us a rather more reasonable and satisfactory list than that contained in this Order.
I would remind the hon. Gentleman, first, that the present Minister of Pensions and National Insurance informed us as long ago as 1950 that it was the policy of the Conservative Party to sweep all goods out of Purchase Tax with the exception of certain extreme luxuries—those were the words used by the right hon. Gentleman then. Yet exactly the reverse policy is being followed now, because fur coats and other fur objects have been selected for one of the first reductions although the House has felt willing to describe them in recent years as luxuries. I do not say there is no case for making such a reduction in the case of fur coats, but it is contrary to previous statements on this subject that they should be given first priority in this fashion.
My other point is that there is at the moment considerable anxiety and fear of unemployment in the Lancashire textile industry. Would it not be possible for the Government, at a time when they are making these reductions, when they are extending the cuts to fur coats, which come within the general term of clothing, to consider making an immediate concession—before waiting for the unemployment to develop which many people in Lancashire at present fear—for cotton and other textiles which are again threatened with depression? I ask the Financial Secretary at least to assure us tonight that he will discuss such a possibility with the Chancellor between now and the Budget——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew): If the Financial Secretary did that, he would be out of order.

Mr. Jay: I was merely putting the point, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that as we are considering a reduction in the tax on furs, I hope the hon. Gentleman will keep these other possibilities in mind.

10.5 p.m.

Mr. Bernard Braine: Perhaps I ought to preface my remarks by saying that I have a small, indirect interest in this matter in that I am connected with a firm which engages in the import and export of raw furs.
I am astonished at the observations of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay). They seemed to be directed solely towards getting the words "mink to mops" in tomorrow's "Daily Herald." When he made refer-


ence to the fur trade being a luxury trade, I understood at once the reason for the Prayer. His speech was a mixture of ignorance and prejudice. It is a great pity that the right hon. Gentleman did not consult his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) and his hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher), both of whom have in their constituencies people who are employed in the fur trade and who, through the years, have suffered a great deal as a result of the burdens placed upon the trade by successive Chancellors of the Exchequer.

Mr. Jay: I do not think the hon. Gentleman could have listened to anything that I said. I did not say that it was a mistake for this reduction in tax to be made. I asked the Financial Secretary to explain why he had made it and why he had omitted other reductions which, in my view, might have accompanied it.

Mr. Braine: The right hon. Gentleman's sole argument, if I understood it correctly, was that the relief had been given to a luxury industry, and he asked why other articles had not been selected.
I rise simply to establish one clear fact, that the fur trade of this country is a craft industry which makes a contribution to the British economy out of all proportion to the number of people engaged in it. About 10,000 people are engaged in the processing, dyeing and manufacturing trades. Exports amount to about £25 million a year, even considerable invisibles; they add to the lustre of our national reputation for fine craftsmanship, and help to earn the bread and butter of our Welfare State.
The tax of 100 per cent. which flourished when the right hon. Gentleman was on the Treasury Bench virtually killed the trade. I have here HANSARD of 13th May, 1952, when this matter was considered in Committee on the Finance Bill. The tax was then at the rate of 100 per cent., and the hon. and learned Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North said:
To-day there is considerable unemployment, and I understand that if the proposals set out in the Schedule are not altered there will be a considerable increase of unemployment. The balance of the trade will be upset. The position would be that not only would the Treasury not gain an a result of its proposals, but, in all

probability, through trade falling, manufacture declining and unemployment increasing, the revenue itself would fall. If that is a true statement of the position, and the trade says that it is, surely something ought to be done." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th May, 1952; Vol. 500, c. 1295.]
It is a great pity that the right hon. Gentleman did not consult his hon. and learned Friend. He would then have realised the effect that Purchase Tax, although reduced successively from 100 per cent. to 50 per cent., has had upon the trade. I recommend the right hon. Gentleman to read the Report of the Douglas Committee, which clearly shows the terrible effect that Purchase Tax was having upon the home market in the case not only of furs but of other craft industries.
For the information of the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends who seem so quickly to have forgotten the situation then, may I explain why a home market is so essential and why we should seek to remove the heavy and oppressive burden on the trade which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has seen fit to lighten by stages. The overseas demand for raw furs and fur garments is seasonal and, therefore, a home market is absolutely imperative if we wish to maintain employment and safeguard skill. But the overseas demand is also selective. Buyers come to London because the London fur market can offer them the finest range of choice in the world. Importers cannot import furs on a large scale, and offer to buyers from all over the world a fine range, if they have no home market in which they may dispose of what they cannot sell overseas.
There is a second reason why the home market is essential. The right hon. Member for Battersea, North was at the Treasury long enough to learn something about the rudiments of business life in this country and I should have thought that he would know that a home market is essential because, although the bulk of our exports are in raw skins and dressed and dyed furs, in recent years, as the hon. Member for West Houghton (Mr. J. T. Price) will know, we have managed to build up a substantial export trade in manufactured garments. We have been able to compete with the people who had a monopoly in this trade before the war, and we have been doing very well. But it is impossible to export manufactured


garments unless we can sell them, and we cannot sell them unless we are up-to-date in colour, fashion and design. A home market is necessary in order to experiment for that purpose.
The right hon. Member for Battersea, North and his hon. Friends know that this country can survive only on the basis of exporting quality goods. We must have a home market to ensure production. I say, therefore, that this Motion is based on prejudice and ignorance and is ill-conceived. I cannot think that it will receive the support of hon. Gentlemen opposite who know the position; who are anxious to safeguard this great craft industry and who are concerned about the employment of their constituents. If the right hon. Gentleman is at all jealous to safeguard the interests of workers in this industry I beg him to withdraw the Motion.

10.14 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Willey: I understand that the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Braine) was seconding the Motion——

Mr. F. A. Burden: It is not necessary for the Motion to be seconded. The right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) is a Privy Councillor.

Mr. Willey: —but rarely have I heard a speech seconding a Motion which was so critical of the Motion.

Mr. Braine: On a point of order. I do not think that anyone listening to what I have just said could possibly imagine that I was seconding this ill-conceived and mischievous Motion. But I hasten to put the hon. Gentleman out of his misery by saying that in no circumstances——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is not a point of order.

Mr. Willey: I wish to point out to the hon. Member for Billericay that we made it clear from the start that we do not object to this Order. We are' merely asking for an explanation and surely we are entitled to do so. What disturbed me was the filibustering manner in which the hon. Member evaded any explanation. We want an explanation. We want to know why this selection has been made.
The hon. Member for Billericay dealt only with fur coats. Is not he concerned

about mops? Does not he worry about thermometers, barometers, serviettes, paper covers, and table decorations? Is he not concerned with those—because the Government are; that is why we have this Order. Surely he will now agree that we ought to have an explanation, at any rate of all the points which he did not mention.

Mr. Braine: I hope that the hon. Member will do me the justice of realising that I was concerned that he was concerned about the juxtaposition of minks and mops.

Mr. Willey: Let us deal with the juxtaposition now. I shall put the question immediately to the Financial Secretary. Why do they appear together in this Order? I hope that we shall have an answer to that question. Is this the Government's decision upon Purchase Tax for this year? Is this all they are going to do? Is the Financial Secretary going to say anything about textiles? Everything said by the hon. Member for Billericay could be applied with much greater force to textiles.
We want to know why this selection has been made. It covers a wide range, and we are entitled to ask the Financial Secretary about it. We are also entitled to know whether this is the Chancellor's statement on Purchase Tax for this year. I hope that we shall be told whether we can expect any further decision, or whether this incorporates the decision for the coming financial year.
We are entitled to ask why the hon. Member for Billericay was so concerned about fur coats, at the expense of textiles and other commodities. I understand that the concession in regard to fur coats is being made because there is so much evasion of tax that it is better to "come clean." The Financial Secretary should tell us whether that is the reason. All that the hon. Member for Billericay has said is wide of the point. I apologise for being drawn into this debate, but I hope that we shall have an unambiguous reply to our questions.

Mr. J. T. Price: My hon. Friend has raised a very interesting point. To all discreet inquiries made by hon. Members on both sides of the House to the Treasury Bench in recent weeks as to the intentions about Purchase Tax, the stock reply, in accordance with traditional


usage, has been that the Chancellor cannot anticipate his Budget speech. Why is the Chancellor presenting this Order?

Mr. Willey: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for so succinctly expressing my peroration. It is needless for me to continue further.

10.19 p.m.

Mr. F. A. Burden: I have never heard such a weak case put forward from the Opposition benches as I have tonight. It seems to me that the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) and the right hon. Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Jay) might have got together before the debate opened, so that they could decide exactly what line of argument they should take.
I was very interested to hear the right hon. Member for Battersea, North discuss some of the items which are included in this Order, especially as he very carefully skated around the fact that my right hon. Friend has progressively reduced Purchase Tax upon the articles mentioned in the Order and upon others. For instance, he reduced the Purchase Tax on furs and on other articles which bore 100 per cent. tax when the right hon. Member for Battersea, North was at the Treasury, to 75 per cent., and the tax on articles which bore it at the rate of 66⅔per cent. when the right hon. Gentleman was at the Treasury, he reduced to 50 per cent. The tax on articles which, formerly, was at the rate of 33⅓ per cent., has since been reduced to 25 per cent.
It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to say that he wants an explanation of this Order. The simple answer is that, whenever my right hon. Friend the Chancellor sees the need of still further reducing Purchase Tax, he does so, and, in some cases, he has completely abolished it. The hon. Member for Sunderland, North asked why we should remove thermometers from the Purchase Tax range. One possible reason might be to enable hon. Gentlemen opposite to take more easily the temperatures of those of their hon. Friends who sit below the Gangway.
On the question of furs, which is a very important one in this Order, I am rather surprised that the right hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) is not sitting on the Opposition Front Bench tonight, because he is the right hon.

Gentleman who referred to people walking about "dripping in mink." He, apparently, knows a lot about the fur trade, and, as I say, I am very surprised that he is not sitting in the place of the right hon. Member for Battersea, North. All I could see in the argument of that right hon. Gentleman tonight was that he tried to make the "Daily Herald" headlines with his remark about "mink to mops, and nothing in between," which, of course, is just not true.
Furs are not only for the rich, as right hon. and hon. Members opposite so often try to imply. There are many articles of clothing and other things which are far less attainable by middle-class and poor people than are fur coats. Fur coats are very desirable articles of attire, and are used by many people among the lower income groups. In the main, the fur trade of this country sell good quality, hard-wearing, warm garments at very moderate prices, and if the right hon. Gentleman does not agree with that I suggest that he should go to some of the shops in London and see for himself.

Mr. Jay: Mr. Jay indicated assent.

Mr. Burden: The right hon. Gentleman nods in agreement. That being so, why is there always the implication that any reduction in Purchase Tax on furs is pandering to the wealthy people who can purchase mink?
Why—if the right hon. Gentleman agrees with me—the sneer in the early part of his speech about "from mink to mops and nothing in between"? It just is not true, and the right hon. Gentleman knows it is not true. Indeed, the reason for this action is very evident. Had the right hon. Gentleman looked into the figures—figures which, I have no doubt, could have been given to him by some of his right hon. and hon. Friends—he would have seen that in 1946 the total value of retail sales in the fur trade was estimated at £8 million. In 1947, it rose to £9 million, but it has now dropped to between £5½ million and £6 million.
The estimated value of retail sales in the fur trade in 1937 was £5 million. The right hon. Gentleman will, of course, appreciate that since then wages have risen by at least three times in the fur trade compared with what they were in 1937. Then, of course, there was no 40-hour week and no paid holidays. These things, of course, we all welcome,


and many of those concessions to wage earners were much overdue.
To carry the argument still further so that the right hon. Gentleman may appreciate the doldrums into which the fur trade has slipped, I would point out that in 1937 the price of Canadian squirrel skins was 4d. or 5d. each, whereas it is now 6s. Ocelot were then £2; they are now £12. Ermine were then 5s., and they are now 30s.; and so on throughout the whole range of furs. Unwanted skins have not risen nearly so much. Indeed, in some cases, they have dropped, because the people do not want those skins.
In the fur trade, the public are the people who decide, and they do not agree that the men in Whitehall know best. If we look at these figures and compare these values with 1937, we shall begin to realise the need for the action which my right hon. Friend has taken. The trade has shrunk to about a quarter of what it was in 1937, yet the number of firms engaged in the industry making furs and dealing in skins is approximately the same.
The simple fact of the matter is this. The trade just could not go on and carry the weight of taxation that was being exacted from it. It was shrinking each year, and I have no doubt that, despite all his bias and his arguments, if the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Batter-sea, North had been in the position of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and had received the same arguments, he would probably have taken precisely the same action.
There is another aspect of this matter. There was widespread evasion of the tax, which is something which those of us who have looked into it and who understand the difficulties fully appreciate. On the one hand, we had the industry getting right into the doldrums, and, on the other, the difficulty of collecting the tax. It is the belief of those engaged in the trade that this reduction will so narrow the gap between the advantage of evasion and the penalties, which are severe, that there will be far less evasion in future and that, in fact, because of this, the Treasury is likely to collect more tax rather than less from furs.
If the right hon. Member for Battersea, North will pause to think for a moment, he will realise that the people who were suffering because of this tendency to endeavour to evade the tax were, in fact,

the reputable stores and retailers. They were suffering and losing their customers. Indeed, I hope the public will realise that, in taking this action, my right hon. Friend is not only endeavouring to help the trade, but that he has indicated that there is an awareness of the fact that evasion has taken place. Now that the gains from such evasion have been narrowed, and the penalties remain just the same, I would suggest——

Mr. J. T. Price: I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I am following his argument very closely, and I apologise for entering this debate so late at night. On the case presented by hon. Gentlemen opposite about the effect on the fur trade, and particularly on the skilled labour in the fur trade, I may say that I am well informed, as some hon. Members may know. Is it not a very dangerous doctrine to find expression in this House, that if certain people are evading the tax the way to deal with that situation is to give way to these threats of evasion? Surely that is the last thing in the world which the Treasury ought to be doing.

Mr. Burden: There is no question of giving way. These evasions have taken place, and I was expressing a view, which I believe to be correct and proper——

Mr. Willey: Mr. Willey rose——

Mr. Burden: I am sorry, but I cannot give way any more, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind.
Evasion has taken place, but the removal of Purchase Tax will help the trade. If there is any evasion I have no doubt that the strongest measures will be taken to find out where it is, and that the fur trade will co-operate in bringing to light the people who are jeopardising the interests of the trade.
In reducing the tax from 75 per cent. to 50 per cent. my right hon. Friend has taken action that will be welcomed by the trade and will assist it to retain its stability, while making it possible for it to go to new markets overseas. It will also bring security to a large number of skilled men whose art we can ill afford to lose.

10.32 p.m.

Mr. F. Blackburn: It seems evident from the speeches we have heard that hon. Mem-


bers opposite have no idea why this selection has been made. They have referred it almost entirely to the fur trade. I shall not argue against a single provision of this Order, nor comment on the very dangerous doctrine put forward by the hon. Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden). I shall not get out of order by making a plea for the textile industry, which is a matter of very great concern to my constituency.
The fact that this Order has been brought forward has created confusion in some parts of the country. I think I am correct in saying that last year the Chancellor anticipated his Budget by putting forward his Purchase Tax suggestions much earlier. That has been done again this year in a very limited sphere. We have had no statement whether these are the final reductions. In view of the confusion, it is important that a statement should be made by the Financial Secretary so that we may know exactly where we are. I do not think anyone would object to the reductions made in the Order, but we are entitled to an explanation whether they are the final word of the Chancellor.

10.33 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Henry Brooke): This is a Motion to annul a Purchase Tax Order. If it were meant as an attack upon the Order it would not be considered very damaging. I understand from what has been said by the Opposition that they are not attacking the Order so much as seeking an explanation why it has been made in this form.
The right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) described it as rather a peculiar Order. He went on to make my task a somewhat delicate one, because its peculiarity appeared, in his eyes, to lie not so much in what it contained as in what it omitted. Clearly, I shall be out of order if I make a speech ranging over the rest of the Purchase Tax Schedules and explaining why my right hon. Friend has not proposed any change in the rest of the field.

Mr. J. T. Price: Why not chance it?

Mr. Brooke: I think it is not usual to expect the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to make the Budget speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer at 10.35 p.m. on 21st February.
I should like to remind the House of what my right hon. Friend said on 25th January. Answering a Question on that day, he said:
The Purchase Tax Orders which have just been laid before Parliament are in each case designed to deal with special situations which have come to my notice and which need to be rectified without delay.

Mr. Blackburn: Are we to understand from that that no other things have been brought to the special notice of the Chancellor?

Mr. Brooke: Perhaps I might continue my speech. I hope I shall be able to explain the matter lucidly.
In that answer, my right hon. Friend went on to explain that he was not proposing at that date to make a statement similar to that which he made early in February last year. He said:
No inferences should be drawn from this. It is too early for me to say what, if any, tax alterations it may be right to make this year, and in any event there are a number of other taxes to be considered also, so it would be unwise to take my present statement as pointing to the likelihood of Purchase Tax changes in the next Budget."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th Jan. 1955; Vol. 310, c. 8.]
I cannot this evening add anything to that statement.

Mr. Jay: While the hon. Gentleman cannot add anything to it, can he tell us—as it has not been made clear—why the Chancellor made a statement of that kind last year, but has declined to make one this year?

Mr. Brooke: I think I have given the right hon. Member the answer to that question previously in the House.
I explained that last year, in the view of the Chancellor, a situation arose where there was a holding back of purchases in anticipation of the possibility of further general Purchase Tax reductions in the Budget. The House will remember that in the 1953 Budget there had been general reductions and some people were imagining that the 1954 Budget might bring similar good things. In that situation my right hon. Friend decided that it was wise for him to make a statement. In his view, a similar situation does not exist at the moment.
I think that the duty which remains for me to discharge to the House is to explain briefly the reasons for the four items that are in this Purchase Tax Order. I want to try to elucidate in each case the special


situations which exist. First, the fur trade. Up to the time of this Order furs were chargeable with tax at 75 per cent. That is a high rate of tax and it is quite clear that it was acting in a punitive way on the retail trade in furs in this country. Various branches of the fur trade are of considerable importance to our economy. London has established itself as a world centre for furs. Before the war the activities of the Nazis went far to ruin Leipzig as a centre of world trade. There was every advantage to be gained, from our point of view, in extending London's reputation. We were very successful in the direction of improving London's reputation as a world centre of the trade in fur skins.
Also, before the war there was established in London a profitable trade, which had formerly been in German hands, in the dressing and dyeing of skins for the international market. After the war, we were left with limited spending power for things like fur coats and, in addition, a very high rate of duty.
If I may respectfully say so, I think that the party opposite was never quite able to establish the right application of its theory of high taxes on luxuries. The cause and effect of those high taxes in the conditions of the post-war world are likely to strangle trade altogether. High taxes may be all right on luxuries when direct taxation is light and there is plenty of money about, but if crushing rates of direct taxation are to be imposed and then, added to that, there are high luxury taxes on costly goods, the craft trades may well be strangled. It would be most disastrous if we so shaped our tax machinery that we killed the craft trades that have been of great value to this country.
I am delighted that we are retaining in London the entrepôt trade in skins. There has been an improvement in the trade in recent weeks. Altogether, I have no doubt that the position is rendered more difficult by the limited home market for fur garments which is forced upon us by high rates of Purchase Tax. If that home market were to continue to decline, it would have at least two serious disadvantages. It would mean that the overseas buyers were not able to see goods of the highest quality on display in London shops, and if these things cannot be seen they will not be bought. Those wanting them will go and buy them

elsewhere, and there are other capitals of the world which would very much like to attract buyers of high quality furs.
In addition to that, there are the dyeing houses which have developed so well in London, and I am advised that the home market in its recent state has been inadequate to provide continuity of employment between the seasons for the international sales. Thus, we were facing a dangerous situation. It was to steady this position and to give this craft trade greater strength at home for the future that my right hon. Friend came to the decision that 75 per cent. was too high a rate of taxation.
My right hon. Friend reached a similar decision in a similar case a year ago. The House will remember that early in 1954 he reduced the tax on jewellery from 75 per cent. to 50 per cent. and he did that with general approval. Undoubtedly, in that case, it prevented a similar dangerous situation from arising. What he is doing in this Order is nothing novel or astounding. He is simply applying to the fur trade the same remedial treatment which he successfully applied to jewellery.
The other items in the Order are of comparatively small moment. The House will have seen that this Order reduces from 50 per cent. to 25 to per cent. the rate of tax on paper serviettes, paper doyleys, paper table covers, paper table decorations, shelf paper, and similar articles of paper. If hon. Members have studied the Purchase Tax groups they will know that, apart from more elaborate productions, the main paper articles falling within the Purchase Tax Schedule are wallpaper and stationery. Both of these pay tax at 25 per cent.
Paper handkerchiefs and paper towels were totally exempted from tax in 1948 on the ground that they were largely used by workers in factories, and also on the ground that their textile counterparts were largely exempt because they fell within the utility range. But there still remained this rather odd item which I have mentioned and which continued to be chargeable at 50 per cent.
This, clearly, was illogical and it was unfair because, as I have mentioned, other paper articles were mainly chargeable at 25 per cent. Paper handkerchiefs and paper towels were totally exempt, and to impose a difference of 50 per cent. in


taxation between paper towels on the one hand and paper serviettes on the other, is, if I may use the expression, really a bit steep. It is, therefore, to tidy up the Schedules and to remove an obvious illogicality that my right hon. Friend decided to bring this small 50 per cent. group of articles more into line with paper towels and reduce the tax to 25 per cent.
We come next to mops. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Battersea, North claimed great credit for his party for what he described as their progress in removing household necessities from the realm of Purchase Tax; but he forgot mops. There has been an exemption, almost from the start of Purchase Tax history, for household brooms and brushes.
Many mops may rightfully be described as household brooms or, more likely, as household brushes; but there are nowadays many articles on the market which are mops and are not household brooms or brushes; and I hope that the House will agree that the one sensible thing for us to do is to establish a firm exemption for mops so that all mops, brooms and brushes shall be treated alike.
I must now say a word about thermometers and barometers. These, as hon. Members know, may be made in many different forms. There are the scientific and industrial varieties, and tax is not charged on those. They may be made up, on the other hand, into many kinds of article. A thermometer may be fixed on to a silver mount, and there have been barometers mounted in many kinds of ways; sometimes there are thermometers in hat racks, and all barometers and thermometers of that kind—those which are elaborately mounted—will remain chargeable in whatever group the mount may fall.
For instance, a barometer on a silver mount will remain silverware for taxation purposes, and a hat rack thermometer will be taxed as an article of domestic furniture. But between those which are nicely mounted, and the industrial and scientific variety, there is the intermediate type; the ordinary thermometer which

hon. Members may well have in their homes.
It was doubtful what rate of tax was properly chargeable on these. It seemed that they were still liable as domestic appliances, and, therefore, taxable at 25 per cent., but the position was in considerable doubt, and my right hon. Friend felt that the only clear thing to do was to lay down firmly that a barometer or a thermometer which primarily was a barometer or a thermometer, and not a silver-mounted article or a hat rack or anything else, should be exempt from tax. I hope the House will agree that that, too, was a special situation worthy to rank in the description which the Chancellor gave.

Mr. J. T. Price: Suppose that that section of the trade which deals with these elaborately-mounted articles to which the Financial Secretary refers is sufficiently resilient to put the thermometer and the mount in separate boxes and send them as two separate articles? If I were in the trade that would at once appeal to me as a way round the tax. It is the sort of practical point we must think about.

Mr. Herbert W. Bowden: Is that not a dangerous doctrine?

Mr. Brooke: I can only hope that the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) is not going to the thermometer or barometer trade. If he does I think that we shall find a way of countering him.
I have explained how these were special situations which my right hon. Friend felt should be dealt with without delay. In doing so he is in no way prejudicing, either affirmatively or negatively, what he may decide to do at any later date, for Purchase Tax changes need not be made at any one time of year—or any two times of year. They can be made at any date.

Mr. Jay: In view of the Financial Secretary's most painstaking explanation, which we sought to elicit and to which the House was entitled, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

AIRPORT, NORTH-EAST AREA

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Studholme.]

10.52 p.m.

Mr. Paul Williams: It is not a very far cry from barometers and thermometers to cold weather in the North-East, nor a very far cry from cold weather in the North-East to aircraft not flying or otherwise from an airport which may or may not exist in that part. It is upon the subject of an airport for the North-East that I must detain the House now for a few minutes.
In the North-East counties there has been since 1944 some considerable discussion about the possible development of an airport there. It has been commonly called an international airport. I have never been quite sure whether those who have talked about such an international airport have ever flown, or have even known what an international airport is, but 1 shall return in a few moments to what type of airport may or may not be needed.
Those who are concerned with air development in the North-East need to clear their minds as to what type of airport they do, in fact need. If we are thinking in terms of a Prestwick or a London Airport then I am afraid we have to think again. There could never, in the foreseeable future be the sort of traffic which could make an international airport of that standing a going concern.
Since the war there has been reserved near Boldon, Co. Durham, a piece of land for future airport development. Over the last ten or eleven years there have been discussions by various bodies and committees, but at each succeeding stage there has been an absence of any finality and, as it seems to me, an absence of that co-operation between the local authorities which could have led to a Boldon airport being developed—as opposed to being merely a paper plan for discussion between local authorities and the central Government.
However, the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation, in reply to a Question not long ago by the Member for

Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey), answered that the site at Boldon had ceased to be reserved. Although I agree with that decision, I think the House should have, in a short form, some reasons for abandoning the Boldon site. I personally believe that what I assume to be the reasons are valid.
First, there is the question of weather. Although some believe that the weather there, is adequate, and although I got an answer to a Question stating that the weather was no worse than at any other industrial site, I still believe the weather at the proposed Boldon site is not as good as the weather at the present Newcastle airport site at Woolsington, which can be deemed to be outside an industrial area, for this lies to the north-west of Newcastle, out of the prevailing wind and away from the smoke, fog, dirt and dust of the industrial region.
Another reason why a decision was needed, and why Boldon needed to be abandoned, was that the coal mining and getting of coal from beneath the land was necessary in the national interest, and now that coal, which had been sterilized for ten or eleven years, can be mined.
A third reason I adduce for ending the Boldon scheme is that at the moment there is nearly £250,000 of capital lied up in the development of an existing airport in the North. For the central Government to throw overboard £250,000 worth of development would, I think, have been regarded as a scandal by anyone who has the solvency of this country at heart, and on that ground alone the ending of the Boldon scheme is worth while.
The conclusion I come to at this phase of my remarks is that there is at this moment an airport in the North-east, operating Continental services of such quality and regularity, weather permitting, as to deem it to be one of the better of the smaller airports. Perhaps, geographically, it does not meet the bill for the whole of the North-east, but for the reasons I have given I believe the Minister has been right in abandoning the Boldon project. I believe that Woolsington meets all the present and all forsee-able needs of aircraft operations in the North-East.
On this, there are two major points I want to raise. The first is the addi-


tional requirements which I deem to be essential at Woolsington, and how the developments are to be financed. As far as I can make out, four major developments are needed to bring any airport in the North-East—and I assume that to be Woolsington—into a full and efficient state of readiness for all civil operations.
First, I imagine, is an extension of the existing runway so that it will be completely safe for the operation of the latest Viscount aircraft. I believe that it is now regarded as being safe, but I should like some confirmation about the present runway and whether, in fact, it needs extending. Secondly development is needed on the present site by the expansion of the hangar accommodation which is vitally needed if the services going through Newcastle airport are to be of any success in the future.
Thirdly, there is the improvement of the terminal buildings and—I hardly dare to use the phrase—the "passenger handling facilities." I am always rather shocked when I hear people using those words because it sounds as if we, the passengers, are brown paper parcels tied up with pink string and sealing wax, and perhaps, red tape as well. But not, of course, in the present Administration.
I believe that considerable financial help is needed to develop the terminal buildings and the passenger accommodation at this airport. Finally, to get it into a more complete state of readiness there are also needed radio and further radar aids. If I assume correctly that Newcastle airport is the most likely site to be developed for an airport in the North-East, and these are the developments which are needed, the real, key question is: how are they to be financed?
At this stage I think there is need for the Government to say how further development should be financed. As I see it, there are three ways by which this could be achieved. It could be done by direct Government grant or loan, but I should give little approval to such a method, partly because of the direct expense on the Government and partly because it would inevitably mean less control by the local authorities in the North-East, which is something that it is necessary to maintain if the airport is to serve the purpose for which it is required.
One might suggest, secondly, that the full burden might fall on Newcastle itself, because the Woolsington site is the site for the Newcastle airport at the moment; or alternatively, on the local authorities in the North-East who are most directly concerned. I am not convinced that the local authorities in the North-East could finance the whole development, but a strong case could be made out for asking them to get together to see how they could contribute, and in what measure, towards the necessary development.
That brings me to my third suggestion for the method for financing this development; that there should be an arrangement between the Government and the local authorities. For example, when the local authorities had agreed to pay, say 50 per cent., the Government could accept the other 50 per cent. as their burden. I am not suggesting those as hard and fast figures. It might be 90 per cent. on the local authorities and 10 per cent. on the Government. But a strong case could be made out for the local authorities to get together and guarantee x per cent. of the finance, and the Government could then be asked to provide the remainder.
I believe that the Minister was right to abandon the Boldon airport for the reasons which I have given. There has been some controversy because of the geographical situation of the Newcastle airport. It is away from the Tees area. But if, by an airport for the North-East, we mean one which will attract Continental travellers to the North-East, people even from Tees-side would find it better to travel to Newcastle to get to the Continent than to go to London Airport. I am happy about this decision. I hope that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will indicate that the development which I foreshadow is correct and what is the best method of financing it.

11.3 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Willey: The House is obliged to the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams) for raising this matter. I do not wish to be unduly controversial, but I think he would agree that he has not expressed the general view in the North-East. He has expressed the view of the Newcastle Corporation and others, but I think that the general view is against him, and I differ from him on two points in particular.
The hon. Member said that the history of the North-East airport has been marred by an absence of co-operation and decision. I should have thought that, on the contrary, there had been a remarkable example of local co-operation. As the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will be aware, the North-East Airport Joint Committee was set up in 1944. It comprises representatives of all the local authorities concerned in Durham, Northumberland and the North Riding; and not only the local authorities, but public bodies such as the chambers of commerce and the leading industrial concerns. Whether or not we agree with it, the committee has, since 1944, been able to express a view which was also that of the Newcastle Corporation, and I believe still is, because the Airport Committee is anxious to meet the Minister and I assume that it is still speaking for the Newcastle Corporation.
I would again differ from the hon. Gentleman about what has been said about the absence of decision. From 1944 onwards the North-East Airport Joint Committee, speaking for the whole of the North-East, has spoken for Boldon. Rightly or wrongly, it has pressed the claims of Boldon while conceding Newcastle's legitimate and proper claims to develop Woolsington. This matter has been taken up with the Ministry on several occasions. I agree at once that this is not the first time that the decision taken by the Government has been altered. Lord Pakenham, when Minister, changed his view about Boldon. In view of the strong pressure put upon him by the Joint Committee, he went to the North-East, inspected the Boldon site, had a full discussion with all the local interests and then reversed his decision and again upheld the Boldon site as the best site available in the North-East.
Lord Pakenham therefore safeguarded the site, but I would point out to the hon. Gentleman that that does not affect the position regarding coal. After discussions with the National Coal Board it was agreed that coal could be worked without prejudicing the site. It was a decision of the previous Minister's predecessor, and safeguarding of the surface was upheld until the change of policy which has recently been announced. I would emphasise that it is a question of safe-

guarding the surface and that it does not affect the coal-getting position.
I should have thought that this was a most inopportune time to announce a decision on finance. It so happens that the Joint Committee met as late as 20th December last and decided to form a working party to examine the financing of an airport, to decide what contribution should be made by local authorities and other interests, and, presumably, what support could be obtained from the Government. The question of finance is now under most active consideration.

Mr. P. Williams: My point is that it has taken since 1944 to get to that stage. There does not seem to be a very dynamic approach towards what is a rather dynamic industry.

Mr. Willey: I think the Parliamentary Secretary would agree that that is not any fault of the Airport Joint Committee. A decision was taken, and then it remained in abeyance, and the previous Minister's predecessor indicated that there was no likelihood of an early development. In these circumstances, I do not criticise the Committee for the steps taken, but it so happens that the Committee is now discussing the matter and it is at this point that the Minister takes the unfortunate step of making his pronouncement.
I wish to reply to the various points that the hon. Member has made. I think that the provision of a first-class airport is an arguable matter. I do not know how valid it was, but, originally, it was to be a transatlantic airport to serve the Continent, being an alternative to Prestwick and having feeder services. I do not know whether that would be so or not, but the matter was under consideration by the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the B.E.A. and both bodies decided that Woolsington would not do and that there would have to be a better site. All the technical advice was that the airport should be at Boldon. Thus, on technical grounds, which we are not discussing tonight, Boldon was the better airport.
Furthermore, if we were to rely upon Woolsington we should not be able to have the sort of airport that the Ministry of Civil Aviation, B.E.A. and the other interested authorities had in mind. I think it is agreed by the hon. Member that


there would in any case be difficulties about Woolsington satisfying the needs of Tees-side and the southern part of the North-East Coast.
As I said, I am not so much anxious to argue the merits of the case as I am to appeal to the Minister to meet the Airport Joint Committee, which, I notice in Press, has met again. The circumstances are similar to those in 1950–51 when the Minister announced his decision. I do not complain of that now; that decision has been made: but I ask him not to close his mind, and, instead, to discuss the matter with those who have devoted a considerable amount of effort and energy to the project. I am sure he will agree that that would be by far the best way to resolve these difficulties.

11.10 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. John Profumo): Both my right hon. Friend and I are grateful to the hon. Members for raising this subject tonight, which we both realise is of considerable interest in the North-East. It seems to me to divide itself into two parts. First, what I might call the question of Woolsington versus Boldon, and, secondly, the method of financing an airport in the North-East.
On the first point, my right hon. Friend has given his reasons for ceasing to safeguard Boldon, or, let me say, for wishing to cease to safeguard Boldon. It was not entirely due to weather, although I understand that the weather at Woolsington is as good as, if not better than, the weather at Boldon.
I would like to recall these reasons. When Lord Pakenham originally decided to safeguard Boldon, there were fears of subsidence caused by coal workings under the surface at Woolsington. This is no longer considered a risk. Secondly, I cannot foresee any requirement for air Services which could not be adequately met at Woolsington. Improvements at present under consideration will fit Woolsington for Viscount aircraft, and I cannot conceive that any requirements in the North-East for runways longer, or stronger, than are required for Viscounts will show themselves for some considerable time.
So long as Boldon was safeguarded, public uncertainty about the Govern-

ment's intentions must make Newcastle hesitate to invest further capital. Furthermore, it must dissipate the efforts of all those in the North-East interested in developing a first-class airport there. Removal of the safeguard will focus public support in the North-East on Woolsington. Boldon is certainly better placed for Sunderland and Tees-side generally. However, no single airport in a wide area such as this could be so placed as to serve the needs of all with equal convenience, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams) has said, the Government could not seriously consider expenditure of millions of pounds on Boldon while another aerodrome, equally capable of taking these services exists about 12½ miles away; especially if, as has been stated tonight, considerable sums of money have been invested in that aerodrome.
The hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) spoke about the North-east Joint Airport Committee and its interest in this matter. As I must make plain, this is a self-appointed Committee formed in September, 1944. My right hon. Friend is under no obligation statutorily, or otherwise, to consult it. As he has made plain, he is at the Committee's disposal should it wish to make representations. As long ago as February, 1954, my right hon. Friend who is now the Secretary of State for the Colonies expressed the view that Woolsington was adequate for the foreseeable needs of international services for the North-East. I think that my right hon. Friend was entitled to assume that as the Committee has not, so far, made representations since that statement, it was in agreement with this view. However, as I am sure we must make a decision as soon as possible, my right hon. Friend is prepared to consider any representations the Committee may make in the near future.
On the question of the financial aspects, I am aware of the initiative and enterprise which the Newcastle Corporation has shown. I have been to Woolsington and seen the airport. But I must make it clear that the decision against continuing to safeguard Boldon does not automatically carry with it an undertaking, nor, even, the implication, that Woolsington should be entitled to a State subsidy. My right hon. Friend certainly does not rule out the


possibility that a contribution by the Government towards further development at Newcastle may be necessary in certain circumstances, but he does not, as yet, feel satisfied that those conditions have so far actually arrived.
In removing the safeguarding of Boldon my right hon. Friend has recognised the importance of Woolsington, and shown his confidence in Newcastle's ability to meet the requirements of the North-East. Traffic may develop in that part of the country to the level at which, but for Woolsington, the State might well have to set up a Government-controlled aerodrome. Such a situation has arisen in Manchester, but that case is not comparable with the one which we are considering tonight. I do not suggest that Newcastle must reach the same level of traffic as Manchester before assistance can be contemplated. We feel, however, that any aerodrome which considers itself entitled to a State contribution must raise itself well above the average of other airports in the same position.
Now let us look at the projects in respect of which Newcastle Corporation is asking for Government assistance to the tune of £300,000. One hundred and eighty thousand pounds is for the provision of additional hangar age. Hangars should be self-supporting—not only architecturally but economically—and, therefore, the only projects at Woolsington which should represent a significant charge upon the rates are the proposed terminal building and the control tower. How much these will actually represent I should not want to hazard a guess tonight. Terminal buildings of which parts are let off as offices, restaurants and other concessions bring in revenue, but assuming the whole cost of the terminal building—which is at present estimated at£100,000—were to fall upon the rates, this would represent an annual charge of £8,000 and should not add as much as Id. to the charge of Id. already being borne. This would not appear to place an excessive burden upon the rates in comparison with what seems to be acceptable elsewhere.
In providing Woolsington aerodrome the Newcastle Corporation is providing a highly valuable service, not only to its own ratepayers but also to the ratepayers of many local authorities between the Tyne and the Tees. It is reasonable to expect that before a charge is borne by

the Government, local authorities other than Newcastle should make their contribution to this local amenity. The decision about Boldon should make it plain to all who are interested that Woolsington need fear no rival in the North-East, certainly so far as any projected State aerodrome is concerned. Perhaps through the agency of the North-East Joint Airport Committee, which has shown its enthusiasm for a North-East airport, a scheme under which the local authorities of the area jointly contribute could be devised. This is a matter to which the Committee might direct its attention.
Having said that under certain conditions it may be that Woolsington would qualify for Government assistance, it might be helpful if I run through some of those conditions. First, the traffic offering would have to be substantially greater than it is at present. I am unable to put a figure on it at the moment. Secondly, we should wish to be satisfied that the contribution of the ratepayers had reached a limit beyond which it would not be reasonable to expect them to go. Thirdly, the plans for the terminal buildings for which we might be called upon to make a contribution must be designed on the most economic lines. As hangars should be self-supporting there should, I think, be no reason in any circumstances for a capital contribution being made towards the cost of these.
If traffic increases substantially this summer and the Newcastle Corporation can give further evidence as to prospects, I and my right hon. Friend will be very ready to look once again at this question in a few months' time, having regard to the extent to which other local authorities are ready to contribute and to the resultant charge on the rates. In the meantime, my right hon. Friend has suggested to the Newcastle Corporation that it may feel that designs for the terminal building should be re-examined and, as he has already announced to the House, he will be very ready to see the North-East Joint Airport Committee before he takes a final step about the safeguarding of Boldon.

Mr. Willey: I am sure that the House is very much obliged to the Parliamentary Secretary for repeating that assurance, but may I point out that if Boldon is


abandoned, and we have to rely on Woolsington, the question of the Tyne toll tunnel will become more important?

Mr. Profumo: No doubt the hon. Member will seek an opportunity, Mr.

Speaker, to bring that matter before the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty minutes past Eleven o'clock